Chartered Manager of the Year

Cindy is a Non Executive Director with extensive experience in global and UK-based businesses within the education, media and third sectors, most recently at Pearson Plc, where she was head of the BTEC and Apprenticeships business unit. Cindy led a world-class educational and lifelong learning offering across >60 markets for >1M learners a year. In her formative career Cindy was a senior leader across media companies, Virgin Retail, Warner Brothers and EMI.

She is passionate about the vital role learning and skills can play in promoting access, progression, and inclusion for individuals - and in driving economic growth and productivity. She has a particular interest in the increasing role of digital in providing access and in innovating what and how we learn. Cindy is also passionate about raising the profile and credibility of vocational and technical education, working closely with government and industry stakeholders.

A strong advocate of DEI, Cindy has been included on the EMPower Involve list for three consecutive years. She was an executive sponsor of Pearson’s race and gender equality programmes, PRIME and WILL and was actively involved in driving the organisation’s strategy in this space, playing a key role in industry-wide forums, and working groups. In 2021 she set up a post-Covid Inequality’s Forum to look at the impact of widening inequalities gap.

Cindy was invited to be a TEDx speaker, presenting on ‘a future yet to be imagined’ in 2018, and was the recipient of the 2019 WeQual Award (Finance & Commercial category) which recognises the achievements of women working in FTSE companies.

Cindy currently sits on the Board of Sage Housing, Speakers Trust, and The London Film School and is a Companion of CMI.