With hundreds of nurseries spread all over the globe, it takes more than one brilliant person to lead a company like Busy Bees.
We have CEOs in Europe, Australia, North America and Asia, an overall group CEO, and both legal and financial specialists, all of whom lend their years of expertise to make Busy Bees the absolute best we can be. That is how we have grown from a small, local company to an international nursery group, bringing the best start in life to children worldwide.
Chris joined Busy Bees in 2019 and successfully led our European operations until his appointment as European Chief Executive in 2023. His strategic focus is on supporting our aspiration to become the largest childcare group in the world, ensuring more children are given the Busy Bees Best Start in Life.
We benefit from Chris's wide previous experience in national retail and leisure industries, where he demonstrated significant management and commercial success. One of his key strengths is building high-performing teams, ensuring colleagues are supported and encouraged to develop their professional practice, and positively engaged in helping Busy Bees to meet its long-term goals.
In 2018 Simon took over from co-founder John Woodward to become our Group CEO, but he has actually been involved with Busy Bees for more than 30 years.
In 1989 Simon advised on our early business plans, in 1998 he joined the board, and in 2000 he became a full-time member of the management team as our Chief Financial Officer. He has supported us from the very beginning too, having sent his three sons to the first ever Busy Bees nursery, Rocklands.
Over the years, Simon has been an essential part of the team that helped Busy Bees grow from a small group managing around 25 nurseries to the global childcare provider it is today - and we can't wait to see where he takes us next.
Cheryl started her career with us in 1997, before becoming Chief of Staff in 2024. Having worked in most operational roles in the business there is not much she does not know about Busy Bees.
As a mother of two boys, Cheryl also understands what life is like as a Busy Bees parent, and is passionate about giving every child the best start in life. Her dedication to delivering exceptional childcare balanced alongside her commercial acumen has helped Busy Bees to become the leading childcare provider across the UK and Ireland.
Matt joined as our Group Chief Financial Officer at the end of 2018, bringing many years of experience in financial and operational leadership roles across a number of international public and private equity owned businesses. Before joining Busy Bees, he was based out of Dubai, leading the Middle East and Asia region of a private equity owned laboratory testing business.
Matt runs our global finance function with responsibility for financial performance across the group. He also leads on banking and investor relations, with responsibility for IT, property and M&A.
James joined Busy Bees in 2020, bringing more than 20 years of senior international marketing experience across consumer, business, retail, digital, leisure and tourism, working with high profile global brands including Merlin Entertainments' Resort Theme Park division, the Watches of Switzerland Group, and Interflora.
As our global CMO, James is focused on delivering profitable occupancy growth for all our centres through high-profile marketing programmes, driving brand awareness and ensuring high levels of parent satisfaction and child retention.
Charlotte joined Busy Bees in 2022, bringing a wealth of experience gained in a variety of strategic HR leadership positions within the hospitality and facilities management sectors. She leads the group's global people strategy, targeting four key areas: talent acquisition and retention, growing future talent, leadership development and employee engagement.
Charlotte is a former Busy Bees parent, so has experienced the Busy Bees difference first-hand.
James joined Busy Bees in 2022 to lead our global M&A function, providing oversight of all M&A activity, including developing our expansion strategy into new geographies.
James brings nearly 20 years of corporate finance and M&A experience, having started his career in investment banking before moving into senior M&A positions at FTSE listed corporates. During this time, he has led new country entry projects, deal origination initiatives and post-acquisition integrations.
James has two young sons and understands what a difference high quality childcare can make to children and their parents.
Gill joined Busy Bees in November 2022 after serving as one of His Majesty's Inspectors and the Deputy Director of Schools and Early Years at Ofsted, the UK inspector of education, training and childcare services. After a highly successful career as a headteacher, at Ofsted she played a leading role creating inspection frameworks and advising the Department for Education and childcare practitioners on the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and the teaching of reading.
In January 2023, Gill was awarded an MBE for her services to education.
Ceri was in-house legal counsel at Rolls-Royce plc before she joined Busy Bees, helping the global engineering group manage risk on projects - especially mergers and acquisitions.
Ceri became Busy Bees' Group General Counsel at the end of 2019. She is effectively our legal lead, providing us with strategic legal advice, overseeing our relationships with external legal advisers, and managing legal risk and governance across the group.