11 December 2025
We’re delighted to announce our partnership with Ian Valvona, who will be supporting us with the delivery of our new governance advisory offering to further education institutions.
Ian is a seasoned senior leader across education, skills, and children’s social care. He’s worked at the sharp end with FE institutions and at the strategic centre of both local and national government. That mix gives him a distinctive edge in corporate governance, policy delivery, communications, and influencing.
He has chaired some of the sector’s most significant institutions: Richmond upon Thames College, guiding it through to its 2023 merger with Harrow College and Uxbridge College to form one of England’s largest FE groups; and Kensington and Chelsea College, leading up to its 2020 merger with Morley College London, now the capital’s biggest adult education provider.
The shape of his career shows a leader who knows how to navigate complexity, steward major change, and bring institutions together at pivotal moments, without losing sight of the people they serve.
As part of Ian’s onboarding process, we caught up with him to ask a few questions about his background and how he will be partnering with AQ.
How has your experience working within the Civil Service and Department for Education added value to the governance roles you have inhabited in the education sector?
As a former civil servant you really appreciate where a Further Education college sits in a wider qualifications and skills ecosystem. You understand how important colleges are to the government even though I recognise that some college leaders will sometimes say that they don’t always feel valued. I do think this feeling has begun to gradually change though – there is a real spring in the step of the FE sector right now.
It will always be the case that government or a department like the Department for Education needs to make connections across a range of government departments and the different parts of our wider system that it looks after. If you can understand that – as I think I do from my time in government – then you know that government will be looking at a college both in terms of whether you are doing your job well in terms of the quality of students’ education and how you spend public money but also in policy terms around the part you can play in delivering the government’s ambition and vision around education and skills. It’s important to understand that – like government – you can only do this as a college on a collaborative basis with a wide set of partners in your local or regional area.
As a former civil servant coming into the role of Chair I also think I benefit from that classic civil servant training that instils balance and weighing of arguments. Many professional backgrounds offer those skills of course but I think a civil service background is a good fit for governance leadership.
From your hands on experience as Chair of a number of colleges, what were your key takeaways about where governance needs to improve or developed to be futureproof?
I don’t think you can ever develop governance to a point where it is future proofed. It’s a bit like a strategy – you don’t develop and agree a strategy and just put it on the shelf for five years. It’s the same with governance: it has to flex and evolve as times change. However, my chair experience – in sometimes difficult circumstances – did teach me that the Triumvirate of Chief Executive, Chair and Director of Governance is absolutely key to a college’s effectiveness. I think I would also add that Boards can never stop thinking about the skills and backgrounds of their governors – this is never an exercise that is done once and then complete – it’s always something that should be live in the minds of college leaders. Finally, I do wonder given how many colleges fall into difficulties because of capital and estates schemes and related issues whether our governance is always fit for purpose to really grip these particular areas? I’m not sure I would be ready to suggest any specific changes to college governance on a national basis to reflect this point. Every college has its own context. It’s just a question that I have been turning over in mind.
What drew you to specialising in governance consultancy?
I genuinely find governance both challenging and interesting. Through my chair roles I learned an awful lot about governance but you only have to get into a conversation with one of our really superb Directors of Governance in this country (and we have quite a few) to realise just how much you still don’t know and still have to learn. Governance can be very technical as well as dynamic – I don’t make Instruments and Articles my bedtime reading, but they underpin a Corporation. They’re important. Whilst good governance, delivery and impact will always be finally achieved through building good relationships – in my view – you do need to appreciate the importance of the framework that all of these relationships are maintained in. That’s why I think the introduction of External Governance Reviews was such a positive step forward – it’s an ideal way to draw together a wide variety of people and personalities (sometimes also egos!) with governance policy and practice to help a college continue to develop and improve.
What are the most common strategic and compliance challenges you encounter with governing bodies, and why is addressing these issues so critical for education leadership?
I wouldn’t try and bullet out common compliance challenges. The question is around striking the right balance between growing and taking risks and recognising that colleges also need to ensure they are compliant in a wide range of areas particularly recognising how complex the funding regime has become. There will need to be some version of an appropriate compliance culture in any college. If it there isn’t really a version of that culture then that will, eventually, be a challenge!
On the strategic side: I can be brief. If the leadership of a college can’t succinctly capture what the college is there to do: what fundamentally is its purpose? Then that can be a challenge. In those thankfully rare scenarios you can spend an afternoon of conversations with a college leadership without ever really talking about learners or the local communities the college serves. Not good.
How much value do you think executive search can bring to board recruitment and how / what has been your experience of this?
In my view delivery and impact is built on good relationships and those relationships are modelled by excellent leaders.
Leadership is a precious commodity and you need organisations [like AQ] that both know who those leaders are and that can transparently and honestly talk to you about how those leaders might fit in a college because they have taken the time to get to know that college really well. When executive search is at its most effective that has been my own experience.
What made you choose to partner with AQ for this work?
I knew that AQ was highly respected in its field, and I had formed good relationships with people there as I prepared to leave the civil service. I could see that it was more than only a job for the people who work at AQ.
They care about improving public services in our country by helping organisations appoint really great leaders. That’s what attracted me to AQ more than anything else.
Introducing Andrew Lewer MBE | AQ
If you’d like to find out more about Anderson Quigley governance advisory support, which Ian has partnered with us to deliver, please contact Helene Usherwood (helene.usherwood@andersonquigley.com) or Paul Aristides (paul.aristides@andersonquigley.com).
