Martin Raby

Martin was born in Wakefield in West Yorkshire, but his family soon moved to Leeds, where he attended Leeds Grammar School. He went on to read law at Leeds University. After graduating he worked for Grant Thornton for six years, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and working in their audit and insolvency practices.

In the early 1990s he began working in the education sector as a senior post holder in a general further education college, with responsibility for finance, estates, management information systems (MIS) and general administration, setting up key systems at the time of college independence. He then studied full-time for an MBA at Bradford University before returning to the education sector, working as a senior manager at colleges in Leeds and Dewsbury, where, drawing on his insolvency experience, he was closely involved in restructuring following financial difficulties and the return of both institutions to financial health.

He subsequently became the finance director at a university, where he was a member of the Executive team at a time of significant change, including the acquisition of schools of agriculture and art from another university and major staff restructuring on the relocation of the university centre to a new city 50 miles away.

He returned to the further education sector for a spell as a Vice Principal of one of England’s largest general FE colleges, before working for KPMG as an Assistant Director in their Education Advisory practice, where he led assignments in the FE and HE sectors in the UK and overseas. He became the Principal at the School in 2008, and gained a PhD based on a case study at the institution considering students’ higher education choices in the era of £9,000 fees.