The Central Team of The Goldfinch Trust provides the strategic and operational backbone for the organisation, ensuring coherence, quality, and stability across all schools within the Trust. 

Strategic Oversight & Operational Excellence

The Central Team of The Goldfinch Trust functions as the strategic nerve centre of the organisation, providing critical leadership and operational infrastructure that enables coherence, compliance, and excellence across all Trust activities. This executive hub ensures that governance frameworks, financial stewardship, communications practices, and performance monitoring systems operate in a tightly coordinated, high-performing manner — enabling each school within the Trust to focus on delivering exceptional, needs-driven education. 

Governance Leadership

The Central Team ensures robust governance arrangements that uphold statutory responsibilities, align with Department for Education requirements, and support effective decision-making across the Trust and its academies. This includes developing and maintaining governance protocols, ensuring compliance with regulatory frameworks and reporting requirements, and fostering accountability throughout the Trust’s leadership structures. 

Financial Strategy & Oversight

With responsibility for financial planning, budgeting, and resource allocation, the Central Team embeds strong financial controls and transparency across the organisation. They govern financial systems and processes that protect public funds, ensure value for money, and support sustainable growth as the Trust scales its services for medically and mentally vulnerable learners. Financial reporting, audit readiness, and strategic budget forecasting are core strengths driven by this team. 

Communication & Stakeholder Engagement

Clear and consistent communication underpins the Trust’s internal and external stakeholder relationships. The Central Team leads on communication strategy, ensuring that school communities, partners, families, and regulatory bodies are engaged with timely, coherent, and trust-enhancing messaging. This includes public relations, digital presence, corporate identity alignment, and crisis communication readiness. 

Performance Oversight & Quality Assurance

Central leadership drives performance oversight frameworks that monitor educational outcomes, operational performance, and organisational effectiveness. By providing analytical insight, quality assurance processes, and continuous improvement mechanisms, the team supports each school to deliver high-quality education tailored to children and young people with complex needs. These performance systems also facilitate data-driven decision-making and evidence-based strategic planning. 
 

Central Team

The Central Team provides leadership, expertise and practical support across The Goldfinch Trust. Working closely with our schools, the team oversees key areas of the Trust's work and helps ensure that its priorities are delivered effectively.

Maarten Crommelin | Chief Executive Officer

Responsible for the Trust's overall leadership, strategic direction and development. Oversees educational and organisational priorities and represents the Trust in its relationships with external partners and stakeholders.

Daniel Smith | Chief Financial Officer

Responsible for financial planning, strategy and risk management across the Trust. Ensures effective financial systems are in place, resources are managed responsibly and the Trust remains financially sustainable.

Benson Chan | Finance and Payroll Manager

Works alongside the Chief Financial Officer to support the Trust's financial management, reporting and processes. Helps monitor budgets, maintain accurate financial records and ensure financial information is available to support effective planning and decision making.

Madeline Bond | Director of Inclusion and Improvement

Oversees inclusion, SEND and school improvement across the Trust. Works with school leaders and staff to develop inclusive practice, strengthen teaching and learning, and support professional development and quality assurance.

Izabela Zienkiewicz | Executive Assistant

Delivers a wide range of executive and administrative support as part of the Central Team. Drives workflow optimisation across the Trust to improve processes. Manages Trust wide communications, events and social media.

Working Together

The Central Team works collaboratively to support our schools, with the Trust's values of collaboration, courage, hope, ambition and pride underpinning its approach.