Careers Week 2024 Promises Quality Talks from Experts in the Field

Monday 4th March to Saturday 9th March is National Careers Week. We have a range of interesting and experienced parents and alumni volunteers joining us to deliver a range of in-lesson and PSHE talks.  

They will be imparting wisdom and knowledge in their area of expertise, with the aim of guiding and educating pupils, as they work to carve out their own future.  

PSHE speakers:

David Lonsdale | Parent | Managing Partner at August Equity  

David joined August Equity in 2008 and became Managing Partner in early 2023. David previously held positions at BSkyB plc and ITV plc where he worked in M&A. He started his career with KPMG spending four years in the private equity group in London. As Managing Partner, David is responsible for the strategic development of August Equity and leading the investment team across new investments and portfolio. Current board seats include Family First, Hallmarq and Medivet. 

Previous Boards include Amtivo, Dental Partners, IVC, Origin, PCS and VetPartners. David holds a BA (Hons) in Management Studies from the University of Nottingham. 

Jonathan Gregson | Parent | Professional Photographer and TV Commercial Director  

Jonathan Gregson is an award-winning professional photographer and TV commercial director with 20 years of experience in the genres of food, still life, and travel. His work spans advertising, branding, packaging, books, and editorial. In 2018 he was invited by the British Institute of Professional Photography to accept their highest award of a Fellowship in recognition of his work in commercial photography. 

Jonathan’s photography has featured extensively in international editorial titles such as Cereal, The Guardian, House & Garden, Lonely Planet Magazine, Observer Food Monthly, Waitrose Food, Tatler, Martha Stewart Living and The Sunday Times. Jonathan is Director of Photography at Good Place Magazine. 

His work illustrates books by top chefs and brands including Marcus Wareing, Madhur Jaffrey, Maria Elia, The River Café, Cairo Kitchen and Shipton Mill.  

Jonathan's commercial clients include Lurpak, Heinz, The Coca Cola Company, Amazon, Harrods, Havana Club, Hovis, Castello, Kashi, Taylor’s Coffee, Le Labo, The White Company, Marcus Wareing Restaurants, Subway, Billington's, and Yorkshire Tea. He has also photographed numerous campaigns and directed TV commercials for supermarkets such as Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, and Tesco.

Jane Edwarde | Parent | Head of Real Estate at Slaughter and May  

Jane has been a partner at Slaughter and May since 2006 and head of their real estate team since 2016.  She advises on all aspects of real estate – including acquisitions, disposals, development, planning, leasing, financing and the real estate aspects of corporate transactions and sports deals.  She is one of firm’s diversity and inclusion partners and a sponsor partner for two of the firm’s ten diversity networks.  She also takes a keen interest in the training and development of the next generation of young lawyers and is heavily involved in the firm’s trainee recruitment programme.

Dr. Varun Mehra | Parent | Consultant Haematologist  

Dr Varun Mehra is a Consultant Haematologist based in London who specialises in myelodysplastic syndrome, acute leukaemia, bone marrow failure, autologous transplantation for autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, systemic sclerosis, allogeneic stem cell transplantation, immunotherapy and post-transplant complications. 

Having completed his post-graduate specialist haematology training at King’s College Hospital, London, Dr Mehra he has been working for the past few years as a core member of the busy Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular therapy unit. Alongside this, he has been pursuing his MD(Res) degree with King’s College London University in developing novel diagnostic biomarkers for invasive fungal disease (aspergillosis) in immunocompromised haemato-oncology patients. 

Dr Mehra has been instrumental in leading a large, single centre National Cancer Research Network (NCRN)-badged prospective study on invasive fungal disease and has a good track record for his involvement in clinical trials – most recently as Chief and Principal Investigator of various clinical research studies in the UK. He has developed key academic partnerships in mycology and transplant immunobiology research and education within King’s Health Partners (KHP). His work on disease-specific research is regularly published in high-impact clinical and scientific journals, and he has been awarded various research grants to pursue his academic work in field of haematological medicine. 

Dr Mehra’s main research interests are in infections of immunocompromised hosts, graft versus host disease (GVHD) and transplantation of autoimmune diseases. He has helped to develop exciting research collaborations within and outside of KHP with bench-to-bed translation opportunities. 

He also has a strong interest in education and training. He is currently the Educational Lead for the King’s College Haematology Training program, jointly working with the programme Director.

In lesson speakers: 

Chris Allnutt (Tulley’s 2011) | Junior Sub Editor Chris will be speaking in MFL lessons. 

I attended Alleyn's from 2006 to 2011, studying French, Italian and Latin (plus history, which frankly took up most of my revision time) for my AS/A levels. This followed GCSE choices of French, Latin, History and Geography.  

After an undergraduate degree in Modern Languages (French and Italian) at the University of Oxford, and a subsequent master's degree in the same subjects at the same place, I spent much of my twenties doing all manner of weird internships and jobs: a traineeship at the European Parliament, an internship at BAFTA, on a campaign for a second referendum after Brexit, and then a non-partisan youth voter turnout campaign during the 2019 general election.  

Eventually I stumbled onto an internship on the Life and Arts desk of the Financial Times Weekend, where I remained as a freelancer during what can only be described as "the pandemic years". Eventually I applied for a full-time position as a subeditor on the FT publication formerly known as How To Spend It, now just HTSI, and I have been there for close to three years now.  

Jen Mernagh (Parent) | Investment professional on a career break | Jen will be speaking in Maths lessons. 

Jen Mernagh is an experienced multi-asset investor, with specialised experience in alternative investments.  She has chaired and participated in various committees including investment and strategy committees.  She has held various fund manager and strategist roles at Abrdn and RBS Asset Management.   

Jen studied French, psychology and business studies at A-Level, and has a BSc in Investment and Financial Risk (involving statistics and Economics) Management from City University.  

Annie Bicknell (Parent) | Curator: Public Programmes | Annie will be speaking in Psychology lessons. 

Annie Bicknell studied A levels in Art/Art History, English Literature and Psychology before her BSc in Psychology. After graduation she worked in Public Relations then mental health services where she ran back to work schemes and conducted research.  

Annie qualified as a primary school teacher and taught in state primary and SEND schools in Hampshire, Surrey and London.  She also facilitated workshops with families and neurodivergent seniors and young people in community and gallery settings before moving full time into the Arts.  

First Annie was Education Officer and then Head of Education at Bow Arts Trust where she developed an innovative learning programme in East London. This supported the cooperative studio complex and Nunnery Gallery and included repeat awards from the Wellcome Trust for Art and Science projects.  

Annie went on to run the families service and festival programme at the V&A. In 2010, she moved to Tate to run international learning programmes: Turbinegeneration and BP Art Exchange. Also at Tate, she led the Schools and Teachers programme and qualified as a life coach before her current role curating the Public Programme at Tate Modern and Tate Britain for adult audiences.    

Josh Holloway (Tyson’s 2007) | Product at Wise | Josh will be speaking in Computer Science lessons.  

Josh has always been passionate about problem solving and technology, and this is reflected in his career.  

He is currently a Product Manager at Wise, a leading fintech company which offers a bank account designed for people who have moved countries. His job is to improve the app for 9 million people by understanding customer problems and the technical challenges to solve them, working with engineers, designers and data analysts to continually improve the experience.  

Previously, he was Head of Product at a startup, and before that worked at ITV to help re-launch ITV Hub. And just after university, he set up a digital agency, employing a team of people to make websites for businesses and charities.  

His career started as a programmer, enjoying the creativity and critical thinking that comes with it, learning the skills to personally solve the problems at hand.  

At university, he studied Computer Science, and at school his A-Levels were Computing, Business Studies, Geography and Politics (but Maths would have helped too).