Educated at Tiffin (1967 to 1974 – Deputy Head Boy, Captain of Rugby and Kingsley Montgomery House) and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford reading physics. The education I received at the School was a hugely positive influence in my life. My career was spent in the financial sector in London and 20 years abroad in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and the USA working for a major US Bank and as co-founder and equity partner of a New York based structured asset finance firm. I joined the Governing Board in 2009 and am continually seeking to help enhance the School’s ability to provide both an outstanding academic education and a fantastic extra-curricular experience to all its students. I concurrently serve as Chair of the Governing Board and Chair of The Tiffin School Foundation, the registered charity which owns the School land in Kingston and to which parental and alumni donations are received. There has been tremendous change at the School. In strategic matters, as Chair, I worked with other governors on the academy conversion in 2011, the appointments of a new Headteacher in both 2014 and 2022, the change to a mixed 6th form in 2019 and more recently on securing the strategic future of Grist’s. I have been involved in the successful funding and construction of major site improvements including our new classroom, kitchen, and dining facility in 2018, the new gym extension in 2020, and the 2022 LRC infill project. It is an absolute privilege to serve as a governor of this great School.

I am Chair of the Governing Board, am a member of the Finance Committee, Education Committee and Admissions Committee and am a link governor for careers.

Phil Phillips
Chair of Governors: Tiffin School
Chair: The Tiffin School Foundation

If you wish to contact the Chair of Governors, please email the Clerk to Governors, Diane Moss, at [email protected] 

I was born and educated in Surbiton and now live in Teddington with my husband Simon. I graduated in law and qualified as a solicitor working in the City where I practised commercial litigation for 11 years. I now focus on my role as a school governor and a volunteer on the Cruse Bereavement Helpline. I have three sons who all attended Tiffin School from Year 7. I have seen first-hand how the excellent academic education and exceptionally wide ranging-extracurricular opportunities Tiffin provides benefitted my sons and their peers. I am committed to support Tiffin to continue to maintain these high standards for future generations of students. I have considerable experience as a school governor, having been a parent governor at the local infant and junior schools my sons attended, and I was appointed a parent governor at Tiffin in 2013. I am now a Foundation governor, and I was appointed Vice Chair to the governing board in 2021. I am delighted to be able to continue to contribute to the continued success of Tiffin School.

I am the Vice Chair of the Governing Board, am a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, the Education Committee and the Admissions Committee and am a link governor for safeguarding and SEND.

I studied law at Bristol and qualified as a solicitor, moving from a city firm to the Government Legal Service in 1994. I enjoyed a very varied career until retirement, advising different government departments and other public bodies on all sorts of issues. I bring decades of experience in the public sector to my role as a Tiffin governor. I have strong local ties, having lived in Kingston since 1992. My two sons went to Coombe Hill School, and then to Tiffin. I was a parent governor at Coombe Hill and sat on Kingston’s Schools Admissions Forum and became a parent governor at Tiffin in 2011. I continued to serve as a co-opted governor and have now been appointed as a Foundation governor.

I am chair of the Admissions Committee and am a member of the Education Committee and Pay Committee

Our family have had been so lucky to have two sons at Tiffin. I qualified as a chartered surveyor in 1983 after reading archaeology and anthropology and land economy at Cambridge as a mature student. I worked in the West End in national chartered surveying practices on all types of property problem solving nationwide. I am a past President of the Cambridge University Land Society and of Wimbledon 62 Round Table. I was a parent governor at Tiffin from 2008 to 2012 and am now a Foundation governor. I am committed to husbanding and developing the School’s human talent, land, and capital resources.

I am a member of the Finance Committee and the Pay Committee and represent the Governing Board on the School’s Health and Safety Group.

Both my sons attended the school and for several years I was a member of the TPA. Subsequently, I became a parent governor and then a Foundation governor. I am a chartered accountant and have extensive experience in contracts and procurement in the public sector. In addition, I was an external examiner and distance learning tutor at Durham University Business School for over 20 years. In 2009 I was awarded an MBE for services to equality and diversity. I have always strongly supported the school ethos and have enjoyed my long association with the governing board. I have been closely involved with the building of the Sports Hall and its recent extension and the Learning Resources Centre and kitchen and dining facilities.

I am Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and am a member of the Pay Committee and the Head’s Performance
Review Group.

I grew up in Teddington and attended Surbiton High School. I studied history at University College, London, then completed a masters in ancient history before going to the Institute of Education to undertake my PGCE in history. I was Head of History at Tiffin School between 2004 and 2014. And am currently Deputy Head at Sutton Grammar School. I have always valued the ethos of Tiffin School – the importance of academic achievement alongside developing rounded individuals able to make positive contributions to modern society. I am now a Foundation governor and am delighted to be able to contribute to the continued progress and success of the school.

I am chair of the Education Committee.

Tiffin changed my life. It gave the son of an immigrant single mother a fair shot of success by cultivating curiosity and instilling confidence from an early age. I made my best friends for life at Tiffin. I am currently a senior director at Flagship Pioneering, the $3B+ venture capital fund most known for starting Moderna. I am responsible for coordinating the development, launch, and management of Flagship’s efforts to originate and grow a new generation of companies aimed at pre-empting, predicting, and preventing novel pathogens and chronic diseases. Before joining Flagship, I led the program management office of REACT, one of the largest COVID-19 surveillance programs in the UK, to enable deployment of over 3 million COVID-19 tests to inform UK government policy. Prior
to REACT, I led the analytics for Lord Darzi’s review of health and care in 2018 that helped secure a major cash injection in the NHS. I spent my early career as an analyst at Oliver Wyman, a management consulting company, and at HgCapital, a European private equity firm. I graduated from Harvard College with a BA in cognitive science (2001 – 2005) and served as an innovation fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College (2019 – 2021). I hope that by serving as a governor I can support the school in its mission to become a truly world class educational institution, and that I can help today’s exceptional students take giant leaps in the future. I am a longstanding Surbiton resident, the lucky husband of Shanika and the proud father of two young children.

I am a member of the Finance Committee and a link governor for careers.

I have known Kingston as a child, a student (at the then polytechnic) and for the last 40 or so years as a resident. I have four sons who have all attended Tiffin, the youngest in the 6th form only, and have seen the school develop from an excellent grammar school to a leading school in teaching and learning. I studied mechanical engineering and worked for 14 years in research and development and project work. I then retrained as a teacher and taught in inner London schools for 27 years. With my sons following different interests throughout their school careers, I took the role as coordinator for Tiffin car boot sales for many years. This enabled me to help all the various groups in which my sons were involved and support the extracurricular activities that make Tiffin the school it is. I became a parent governor in 1994 and I am now a Foundation governor.

I am a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, the Education Committee and the Admissions Committee and am a link governor for safeguarding and SEND.

A well-rounded education which challenges the individual is essential in today’s competitive work environment, whatever path they choose to follow. Both my son and daughter were fortunate to attend Tiffin School and Tiffin Girls School respectively. They benefitted from a great all-round education including many extra-curricular activities. I believe that selective education has an important role to play in shaping the future of our young adults. Educated in Cardigan in West Wales, I am an economics graduate of the University of Bristol and a chartered accountant. I have recently retired after a career in various finance and operational roles latterly with a multinational financial services company. I have lived in Esher for the last 37 years. My goal is for Tiffin to continue to be outstanding in every way and to be well positioned to meet the changes that the future will bring.

I am chair of the Finance Committee, chair of the Pay Committee and am a member the Head’s Performance Review Group.

Originally from Lancashire, I read maths at Cambridge and subsequently qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst and Young. Since then, I have worked in a range of finance roles spanning the commercial, not for profit and public sectors. In recent years, I have worked as a civil servant across several central government departments, including the Department for Education in which I liaised frequently with the academy sector. I am married with two children, one of whom was a pupil at Tiffin. During my involvement with the school as a parent and as a Governor, I have been impressed by the school’s ethos and have enjoyed a number of school concerts, house competitions and prominent choir performances. I am delighted to be able to contribute to the school’s success.

I am a member of the Finance Committee and the Audit and Risk Committee.

Having grown up in New Malden, I attended Tiffin between 1982 and 1988 and then went on to Cambridge to study Engineering Science, specialising in manufacturing engineering and management. On leaving Cambridge, I moved into management consultancy working in a wide range of sectors, on topics ranging across commercial strategy, mergers and acquisitions, financial planning, and turnaround. Along the way I have founded a data analytics business staffed across three continents and am now working as an independent business advisor. I have been based in Twickenham for the last 25 years and have two sons, both currently at Tiffin. I am a firm believer that the excellent education, extra-curricular activities, and independence that Tiffin grants to its pupils is the foundation for great people, whatever career path they choose. I feel lucky that I have benefitted from it and that my sons are able to too. As parent governor I am therefore committed to upholding this ethos for present and future pupils.

I am a member of the Finance Committee.

I was elected a parent governor of the School in February 2022 and am extremely proud to be part of the governing board of such an incredible school. I have enjoyed watching many concerts and sport fixtures over the years and am always impressed by the level of commitment and professionalism that every child gives. I have one son at Tiffin currently and I am hugely impressed with the cocurricular opportunities and level of academic excellence that the school provides. I studied music at the University of Edinburgh, before going on to train as a singer at Trinity Laban. Having spent a decade working as a professional singer internationally, I started working as a teacher and have been the Director of Music at Streatham and Clapham High School since 2017. The move to teaching has been hugely rewarding and has underlined my belief that a school will shape a child and should give them the future that they deserve. In 2013, I started a ladies community choir in Wandsworth that holds regular concerts, raising money for charity. I am also a Clothworker of the City of London, which is an ancient livery company with a common purpose of philanthropy. I have sat on the Trusts and Grants Committee for them and have gained insight into the running of a large charitable fund.

I am a member of the Education Committee.

I attended a girls’ grammar school in Bromley and went on to study geography at Cambridge. My first career was in central government where I held varied positions, starting as a VAT inspector, then through finance, estates, new tax projects and ending my time in HM Customs and Excise as a tax policy specialist, responsible for alcohol duties. Having done my time in Whitehall, and having experience as a school governor, including being the chair of the trust board of a multi academy trust for some years, I set up my own business as a governance consultant and now work freelance for a range of organisations including the National Governance Association and the DfE. I was a National Leader of Governance within the DfE and have led various cohorts of clerks through the accredited
clerks’ development programme. The majority of my work is carrying out reviews of governance in multi academy trusts across the country, but I am pleased to also be the governance lead and clerk for the board at Tiffin, working with some great people at a really great school.