30 August 2024
We are thrilled to have Paul Aristides join Anderson Quigley as a Partner, and he will be leading and developing our further education and skills offering. He has extensive experience in supporting further education colleges, training providers, national skills organisations and education charities, with over 16 years of education recruitment experience. He will focus on finding and developing leadership talent for both Executive and governance roles.
The creation of a further education and skills practice will broaden the support we already provide to the education sector, bolstering our network, skills and capabilities to connect diverse talent pools from universities, through to further education, multi-academy trusts, and independent schools.
As part of Paul’s onboarding process, we caught up with him to ask a few questions about his background and future plans.
What is your background?
For 26 years, I’ve only ever worked in education. I started off in professional education within the membership world. Then, I spent three years in Higher Education and then 16 years in executive search, working with education clients ranging from Universities, Colleges, Multi Academy trusts, skills bodies, national bodies, and the odd overseas assignment. Recently, I’ve become a trustee of an 11 school Multi-Academy Trust, which is my first non-executive role and my two children attend the schools within the trust, which is nice. It gives me a different perspective; it is a development curve, but exciting at the same time.
What inspired you to come to Anderson Quigley?
I was keen to experience change and work in a smaller organisation where I felt I could have greater impact and be part of an exciting journey. The support and prominence of education at AQ is inspiring, and the opportunity to develop an FE offering was too good to refuse. But also, I know several people who work at AQ and highly respect their judgment and experience, which, again, was a pull factor in making the move.
How did you get started in FE?
I am genuinely committed to the FE sector and I think they do amazing things. For five years, I supported the ETF strategic leadership program, and part of that support manifested in spending an hour, one to one with Principals in the sector, where I talked to them about their career development, their future plans, etc. It had nothing to do with recruitment; it was part of this strategic leadership program. So, I’ve had the privilege of speaking to well over 100 Principals in the sector, and their commitment to their colleges, communities and learners is staggering.
It’s a sector that is undervalued in every sense of the word. Higher education and schools receive a lot more resource and have a lot more political capital, which FE doesn’t, and I do generally think they’re really good people trying to do a really important job. The people that benefit most from FE are often those 16 to 18 year-olds who choose to pick a vocational route, adults who are retraining or reskilling and those in need of the most support. Local businesses and communities also benefit hugely from having a really great college in its region. So, it’s great to be able to work with these people and help them, because I don’t think they get a lot of help from government or many other external bodies.
How would you like to develop FE? In a year from now, what would you like to see happen?
I would love Anderson Quigley to be on the on the lips of every Principal, Chief Exec, CPO and Chair in the FE sector. When a college sees that it needs some top talent, and when a college board needs to refresh its membership, they consider Anderson Quigley first, give me a call and use our experience to help them solve a problem.
You can connect with Paul on LinkedIn or contact him directly at paul.aristides@andersonquigley.com.
