Zenna Atkins

Partner, ZA Partners

Zenna Atkins is Director of Social Solutions and the out going CEO of Wey Education Plc. She is passionate about the transformative power of education, she brings innovative, fresh thinking to learning environments; she has developed new models of learning to provide a framework for lasting success; designing new schools in new places, spreading the quality of education to new regions. Wey Education acquired Zenna’s company Zail Enterprises in March 2011.

Until September 2010 Zenna was the Chairman of Ofsted, the children and learners’ inspection and regulation body. In this role she spearheaded a new inspection regime, significant costs savings and the shift to put young people at the heart of inspection and education. She was also the Group Chairman of Places for People, a British property development and management company, turning over £280 million with a £3 billion asset base.

She serves as a non-executive director on the board of the Royal Navy and chairs their audit committee. Zenna was a member of HM Treasury audit committee and has served on a number of other British government boards.

She is a regular speaker on education, innovation, CSR, leadership and governance and is an advisor on British governmental panels and committees; Zenna has also established herself as a regular broadsheet columnist for The Guardian and has extensive publications in the education, health and housing press, she was a guest presenter for a television series on Channel 5 and still regularly appears as a commentator on Sky news.

Having won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year award in 2000 and awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Portsmouth University, Zenna has increasingly been invited by governments and corporate blue chip businesses to help drive their political or commercial strategies delivering impactful social outcomes.

Events Zenna Atkins has attended as a speaker: