Creative Education Trust (CET) is today announcing that Marc Jordan is to retire at the end of the 2024-25 academic year, stepping down from the role of CEO at the trust he set up in 2010 and has led for the past 15 years.

Under Marc’s visionary stewardship, CET has grown from a standing start to a thriving network of 17 schools, educating 14,500 children, employing 1,600 staff, and with an annual turnover of £113 million.

Back in 2008, Marc decided to create an organisation that would contribute to the renewal of industrial and coastal communities by providing their young people with a high-grade and rounded education fit for the 21st century. In 2010, he began turning that vision into reality when CET was accredited as an academy sponsor.

Since then, the organisation has grown in scale and complexity but never strayed from its mission to place creativity at the heart of everything it does. Whilst offering an excellent core education, CET has provided rich opportunities for pupils to participate in a wide variety of co-curricular activities, including drama, art, debating, music, and sport.

The process of recruiting a new chief executive will begin in the new academic year.

Abbie Rumbold, Chair of Creative Education Trust, added:

“Marc’s legacy is considerable: not only has Marc created a thriving organisation from scratch, but he has ensured that the Trust has stayed faithful to its founding ambition to put creativity – defined as the ability to find connections between the things we know and to turn these connections into new ideas and action – at the heart of what we do. This is a way of thinking that is crucial to giving the CET child a sense of agency, and the ability to make a positive impact in the contemporary world.

“Everyone at CET owes Marc a huge debt of gratitude for his years of service and commitment.   He leaves big shoes to fill and will be much missed at CET when he leaves us next summer, but he will do so safe in the knowledge that the Trust is in vibrant health, and that it is well placed as the education sector embarks on its next chapter under a new Government.”

Marc Jordan, CEO of Creative Education Trust, said:

“It has been an enormous privilege for me to spend the last decade and a half working alongside such talented and dedicated professionals in our schools, in the Head Office team, and on our Board of Trustees. It is one thing for me to have had a vision for the renewal of struggling schools in challenged communities so that our CET children have the best possible start in life, but what we have accomplished since 2010 has been a team effort.

“The willingness of everyone at CET, past and present, to share in that vision and to go the extra mile to deliver it has been a humbling experience for me. But the time is rapidly approaching when it makes sense for me to hand on the leadership baton to someone with new energy and new ideas about how our shared vision may be taken to the next level.”

Marc intends to continue playing a valuable role in the education and public sectors through his work as a non-executive director in a number of organisations.