SNE Event

Sam Freedman

Senior Fellow, Institute for Government

Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and writes regularly on politics and policy for the Observer the FT and others. Sam’s substack newsletter ‘Comment is Freed’ is the most popular in the UK and has over 75,000 subscribers.

His first book “Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How to Fix It” was released in July, made the Sunday Times bestseller list and was named an Economist, FT and Daily Telegraph book of the year. Sam is also a senior adviser to the education charity Ark; Vice-Chair of Ambition Institute; and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Katherine Cowell

Regional Schools Director for the North East, Department for Education

Katherine Cowell started in her role as Regional Director for the North East in July 2022 as part of a change programme within the Department of Education to bring improvement and intervention in SEND and CSC together with the stewardship of the schools system.

Prior to this Katherine was Regional Schools Commissioner for North in May 2020, following an interim position since July 2019.

Katherine is an experienced civil servant with a broad range of experience including:

 an area director within the Cities and Local Growth Unit
 FE and skills policy
 an education advisor in the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit

Ben Hardy

Policy Manager, Schools North East

Ben returned to Schools North East in January 2026 as Policy Manager, leading on the organisation’s strategic policy and public affairs agenda. His work provides alignment between policy, research, stakeholder engagement, and member insight; ensuring the voice of North East schools is heard to influence decision-makers at the highest levels. 

Ben brings a wealth of cross-sector experience to the role. He re-joins Schools North East following five years at the Department for Education, where he primarily led on stakeholder engagement working closely with the sector to ensure that strategy was developed with schools, trusts, and local authorities. He also served as Policy and Strategy Lead for the ‘Maximising Value for Pupils’ programme, which was launched to tackle systemic challenges at a national level. 

Between 2019 and 2021, Ben was Relationship Manager at Schools North East, where he developed strong relationships with a wide range of stakeholders  across the region, including CEOs, CFOs, Head Teachers, School Business Professionals, local authorities, and other charitable organisations. Prior to this, Ben spent five years at The Key, supporting school and trust leaders nationwide. A committed advocate for the sector, Ben has been involved in school governance for over a decade and is currently Chair of Governors at a primary school in Newcastle.

Chris Zarraga

Director, Schools North East

Chris is the Director of School North East.  He has been part of the Schools North East team since its operational inception in 2008 and in 2019 he was appointed Director.  Chris works with senior leaders across the North East and nationally in the education and charity sectors, to represent the voice of North East schools.  A central part of his work is to lobby politicians,  policy makers, and the media to put a strong ‘regional accent’ on the education debate, so that North East schools are not left behind when it comes to education policy.

Under Chris, Schools North East launched the ‘Manifesto for North East Education’.  The manifesto sets out the perennial challenges that impact educational opportunities in the North East and the principles needed to inform any educational policy wanting to address them.

Chris works with hundreds of schools across the North East and various organisations including Ofsted, the DfE, the North East’s universities, Local Authorities and various regional/ national businesses. Prior to joining Schools North East, he led a £1.4 million culture change project in education across the North East for the Treasury and DfE and was responsible for setting up a multi-million pound Enterprise Education Network. 

Chris sits on various advisory boards including the NHS Integrated Care Boards, various Combined Authority advisory boards, and was a member of the DfE’s Opportunity North East strategic board. He has also sat on various boards for North East Universities. As well as being a Director of two North East multi academy trusts, Chris has been Chair of a 3 school Trust, Vice Chair of a large maintained secondary school and Vice Chair of a primary foundation school. 

In a variety of roles from Regional Manager to Chief Executive to Board member, Chris has led large scale change management projects in education and has over 20 years’ experience of strategic management, consultancy, and client development experience at a ‘Big Four’ firm and various financial institutions.

Chris holds an MBA with distinction from Durham University Business School.