Chris Payne

Chris has worked in Further Education for the last 20 years, latterly in a variety of Senior Leadership roles. His career started with the management of IT training centres in for an outstanding sixth form college in Leicester before developing through his expertise in funding and information systems to take a Director level role for a large FE college in Nottingham.

He joined NCG in February 2010 as Group Director for Planning and Performance, before becoming Executive Director for Strategic Partnerships. In that latter role he was Executive Lead on the mergers with Kidderminster, Carlisle and Lewisham Southwark Colleges. For the majority of 2018-19 Chris stepped up to act as CEO, leading on the refresh of NCGs strategy.

Externally Chris has represented the sector on Technical Advisory Groups with the Finding Agencies. He is also a Governor and Vice Chair at Ada, The National College for Digital Skills in North London.