Beyond King’s

As a pupil at King’s, Anna was a Monitor and was involved in a huge range of activities including playing for the 1st Hockey and Netball teams, as well as representing Worcestershire as the county team captain. She was also involved in athletics, rounders & swimming and the King’s Literary Society and Young Enterprise.

After King’s, Anna studied English Literature at the University of Leeds and then a further Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at Birmingham City University. Anna has since worked for major broadcasters including the BBC, where she started in local radio working at BBC Hereford & Worcester, and went on to work all over the country. She spent time working as a TV reporter for BBC Look North in Leeds and then spent almost for years covering national news for BBC 5live radio in Salford.

Anna now works for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Sydney, having moved down under at the start of 2019. Her responsibilities include writing, and reading live news bulletins to a national audience & producing news programmes. She spends her time off running or at the gorgeous Aussie beaches surfing.

This week we are delighted to feature OV Leanne Sheen (W 99-06) as our OV of the Week. Leanne was a Monitor at King’s and also took part in debating, Young Enterprise and worked on the school newspaper, the King’s Herald.

Leanne went to Cambridge to study Modern and Medieval Languages at Girton College before completing the Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course at The University of Law. A few years later, Leanne undertook a Master of Laws (LLM) in Banking and Finance Law at the University of London while working full-time in practice.

Leanne has spent many years working for international firm, Allen and Overy LLP, where she started as a trainee in 2013. She is now a Senior Associate in their banking practice and enjoys working alongside colleagues and clients from all over the world. She is currently based in London but previously spent over three years working in their Frankfurt office.

More recently, Leanne has been seconded to Goldman Sachs where she works in their investment banking division, negotiating and structuring loans used to finance various types of real estate across EMEA such as hotels, windfarms, student and residential accommodation and logistic/office buildings. Leanne really enjoys the non-legal side of her work. She mentors under the REACH (Race Equality and Celebrating Heritage) scheme and is a training supervisor when in the Allen & Overy office. Social mobility and access to the legal profession is particularly important to her – Leanne was a recipient of a bursary when at King’s.

At work, Leanne interviews as part of the graduate recruitment process, which focuses on example scenarios for candidates to work through and their potential rather than prior legal experience. Leanne is also a Trustee of the King’s School Worcester Development Trust.

This week we are delighted to feature OV Christian Harris (Cl 86-91) as our former pupil of the week.

As a pupil, Christian was involved in music and drama. Christian went to University of Southampton to study Philosophy.

After University, Christian started working in marketing and business roles including CEO at Gorillabox, Vice President Northern Europe at Deezer and as Head of Digital Entertainment at Three.

Since June 2020, Christian started as Managing Director of strategic marketing consultancy, Sticky Content.

We are delighted to feature OV Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Nigel Roughton (Cr 85-90) as our OV of the Week. At King’s, Nigel was a member of the Boat Club, a Prefect and his interest in the Army began as a CCF cadet. He enjoyed Drama and appeared in many productions at Kings, including the first major production in the John Moore Theatre which was built during his time as a pupil.

Nigel went on to the University of the West of England where he studied Humanities and joined Bristol UOTC (University Officer Training Corps) before teaching for a year at Prep School in Surrey (of which the Headmaster was a former Hawford Lodge (King’s Hawford) teacher). He entered Sandhurst in 1994 and was Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1995, serving for over 21 years.

Highlights of Nigel’s Army career include serving as Aide de Camp to an Army Board 4* General, 6 operational tours including Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan and his time as a Battery Commander where he was privileged to lead his soldiers on operations and to Command HM The Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle. He then completed a number of Staff Appointments including at the Ministry of Defence and serving as Chief of Staff at the Joint Ground Based Air Defence Headquarters.

Fittingly, for a military career that began in the CCF, Nigel’s final engagement in uniform was when he returned to King’s as our Remembrance Speaker in November 2015 before retiring from the Army the following week! Nigel then started a new career in Business Development working initially for a small business and latterly for Thales, a global Defence and Technology company, where he has been able to draw upon his extensive military experience and is the Head, Ground Based Air Defence. Nigel is married with 3 energetic children and a Labrador and now lives in South Buckinghamshire.

This week we are featuring OV Lucy Spring (Cl 03-10) as our former pupil of the week. At King’s, Lucy was Head of Chappel House and played on the 1st Hockey and Tennis teams.

Lucy went to the University of Manchester to study International Management which included a year abroad in Hong Kong at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on a Scholarship of Excellence awarded by the British Council.

After graduating, Lucy started her career as a Recruitment Consultant for Michael Page in London. She then took a three month break to travel across South America prior to joining Accenture as part of the Analyst Consulting Group – a program built to support and guide recent graduates / those new to consulting during their first 12-18 months at the firm.

Last September Lucy transferred to Toronto, Canada with Accenture, where she is a part of Accenture Interactive. Her role is focused on leading large-scale digital transformations for a range of clients, with the ultimate goal being to create seamless end-to-end customer experiences.

Our second Former Pupil of the week is Ewen Purcell (Cr 90-93) who has built a successful career in Risk Management. When Ewen was a King’s pupil he took part in CCF, rowing and rugby, and represented Creighton House in tug of war. He also played the part of ‘Leroy’ in the school production of Bugsy Malone, where on the final night, he remembers Mr Le Marchand (Hon OV) took the role of the boxer he was supposed to knock out!

Ewen worked for Barclaycard for 15 years, working his way up from Operational Support Manager to Senior Control Design Manager to Senior Risk and Control Manager, before taking roles at Capital One and Lloyds Banking Group. Ewen’s work has involved developing and embedding Operational Risk Management Frameworks covering Third Party Assurance, Financial Crime, Operations & Technology and Change & Project Management for UK and US businesses.

Ewen is currently an Operational Risk Manager for Santander UK and has recently completed a Foundation degree at the University of Leicester.  Alongside his job, he is also studying for a Master’s degree at the University of Northampton, and earlier this year set up ‘Overstone Counselling’, to take therapy outdoors and change the perception of counselling.

For our first week back at King’s we are delighted to feature OV Rebecca Hardwick (Br 00-05) as our Former Pupil of the Week. Rebecca is establishing herself as an exciting operatic soprano in London. She was a music scholar at King’s as a singer, violinist and recorder player, regularly performing in concerts with the Keys society. Rebecca was heavily involved with the choirs and orchestras – although, her favourite subject was actually Art.

Rebecca went on to study Music as a singer at the University of York, followed by winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, and going on to be a member of the English National Opera ‘Opera Works’ course. During this time, she was selected to be one of eight Apprentices with the internationally acclaimed Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, and has since toured, recorded and performed with the ensembles.

In the 2018/2019 season Rebecca made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in Mozart’s ‘Le nozze di Figaro’.

Despite having had a quiet lockdown, Rebecca is currently working in Bergen, Norway with the Edvard Grieg Kor and Bergen National Opera for their autumn season, including repertoire by Ligeti, Beethoven and Verdi. When she is in London, she sings with the choir of St James’ Spanish Place, Marylebone.

Her latest news is that she is being funded to begin a Doctorate in contemporary vocal performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, specialising in György Kurtág’s seminal work ‘Kafka Fragments’ for soprano and violin. This project was born from a residency she curated at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh during their ‘Festival of New’. She is a keen advocate for contemporary repertoire, having also studied in workshops at the Stockhausen Stiftung für Musik in Germany, and regularly performing internationally with her graphic score group Vocal Constructivists. She is very much looking forward to balancing a few more years of study with her performing career, at a time when the Arts industry is slowly building back to normal.

“Versatility is a very important part of being an artist; I’m very lucky that my career involves so many different avenues of singing – choral, opera, contemporary – I always keep an open mind. I was at King’s before they allowed girls in the Cathedral choir, so I’m very pleased I ended up becoming a singer anyway!”

Our final OV of the Week for this academic year is Emilie Lynch Williams (K 06-13). At King’s, Emilie was a member of the Boat Club, helped out with the art club at St. Albans and was also involved in Young Enterprise.

After King’s, Emilie completed a diploma in Art & Design (Art Foundation) at the University for The Creative Arts in Epsom, Surrey. Whilst there she had the opportunity to try out many different creative outputs including Fine Art, Photography, 3D Design and Architecture and Graphic Design. Emilie settled on and found a passion for Fashion and Textiles which led to studying for a BA Honours Degree in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts in London.

During this time Emilie spent an influential six months at The Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, Sweden where she realised the importance of sustainability and ethical design in both textile and interior design. Alongside her studies Emilie worked in various retail and visual merchandising jobs; most notably at Selfridges and Topshop. Whilst only part-time these roles cemented her customer service and sales skills, and gave Emilie confidence in her design work.

After graduating, Emilie went straight into an almost three-year career as an Interior Designer at Laura Ashley. Emilie says, “Being a notable, British brand steeped in history, this was a wonderful starting point for me and I enjoyed creating coherent and cosy schemes for my clients.” This field-based role included designing both digital and tactile mood boards, processing orders and planning and helping to schedule logistics including deliveries, decorating and curtain fitting.

At the start of the pandemic Emilie was furloughed as her job had involved going into people’s homes which was no longer possible. During the crisis, Emilie set up business Florence and Blank with Sam Raybone (W 06-13) which offers a curated selection of unique home goods and artwork, handmade by various creatives. Their dedication is to slow design, unique one-off pieces and small batch works.

This week we are really pleased to feature OV Anthony Cross (Os 90-96). As a pupil, Anthony took part in many extra-curricular activities including CCF (RAF), choir, drama and Young Enterprise.

Anthony read History at King Alfred’s Winchester, graduating in 2000. After 2 years in a Christian community, followed by a variety of jobs, Anthony studied Occupational Therapy at Sheffield Hallam University, graduating in 2008.

Anthony’s final clinical placement was in forensic mental health, working with mentally disordered offenders and he has worked in this field continuously since 2009. He spent 5½ years at Broadmoor High Secure Hospital, then moved to a medium and low secure unit in Berkshire. Anthony is now Head of Therapies for a private healthcare provider with sites in Hampshire and Surrey. Their patients are all older males (over 55) in low secure and locked ward services.

Anthony says, “Occupational Therapy is promoting and using meaningful activity to optimise people’s quality of life. This is through a balance of self-care, productivity and leisure. Many of the patients with whom I have worked, both now and previously, have never had a balance of these. My role has been to promote this ‘occupational balance’ through structured activity and developing skills for self-management of leisure time. It is using an individual’s own interests to engage them and develop participation.

I have used my own skills and interests in developing activities for patients. I have run choirs and bands. I have led communal singing with older patients, as people with dementia respond well to music. I am currently developing a ‘Men’s Shed’ for the patients.”

Anthony still loves music and plays guitar, ukulele, drums, keyboards and sings. “I have been recording a song every day on my Facebook page during lockdown (#livemusiclockdown), so that there is still live music going out into the world. I remain involved in the Church of England at parish, deanery and diocesan level.”