Brett Wigdortz appointed as Chair of the National Citizen Service Trust

HM The Queen has appointed Brett Wigdortz as chair of the National Citizen Service Trust for a term of three years commencing on 12 July 2018 until 11 July 2021.

Under the terms of the NCS Charter, appointment of the Chair and members is made by HM The Queen on the advice of the Privy Council and on a recommendation from the Prime Minister.

Brett Wigdortz OBE started his career focused on southeast Asian policy and business work at the East-West Centre in Honolulu, HI and the Asia Society in New York City. He then moved to be a management consultant focused on strategy and organisational effectiveness at McKinsey & Company in their Jakarta, Singapore and London offices.

In 2002, he wrote the original business plan for Teach First and led the organisation for fifteen years, from its launch until October 2017, helping to build it into one of the country’s leading movements to tackle education inequality. Among its achievements are: becoming the UK’s largest graduate recruiter, running an accredited world class teacher training program, building a movement of over 10,000 ambassadors focused on ending educational disadvantage and supporting more than one million children in classrooms across England and Wales.

Wigdortz is the author of Success Against the Odds, a candid account of the first ten years of Teach First. He was awarded an OBE in the 2013 Queen’s New Year’s Honour’s list for Services to Education. He has also won numerous awards over the past 15 years, including Charity Times UK Charity CEO of the Year, Ernst & Young UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year, the Evening Standards’ 1,000 Most Influential Londoners for seven years in a row and Debrett’s 500 Most Influential Britons for six years in a row. He has Honorary Doctorates from the University of Warwick and Birmingham City University.

Wigdortz is Co-Founder and a trustee of Teach For All, a network of more than 45 Teach First partner programs in countries all over the world. He is a trustee of Teach First Israel, was the vice chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation Education Advisory Group and is a judge of the Varkey Foundation’s $1 million Global Teacher Prize. He also helped found and is on the board of the Fair Education Alliance.

Since stepping down as CEO of Teach First to become Founder & Honorary President of the charity, Wigdortz has been working with Jamie Oliver to help him develop a national alliance to halve youth obesity by 2030. His main focus is as co-founder and CEO of Tiney.co, a new digital platform aiming to grow, support and improve the quality of childminders and small nurseries in the UK.

He is a dual US and UK citizen and lives with his wife and three young children in London.

The role is remunerated at £400 a day up to a maximum of £40,000 per annum. This appointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Brett has declared no such political activity.