Meet the Team

Elaine Jones

Chair of the Board - Appointed February 2023

Elaine has over 20 years’ experience in Governance within schools including working as a Governance Professional across the school sector including academies in the Archdiocese of Southwark and the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton. Throughout that time, she has been an active governor in both primary and secondary Catholic Schools as well as sitting on an IEB at a Catholic school. She is passionate about ensuring equality of opportunity and access to a quality curriculum for all. Wider educational and social care experience has been gained through sitting as the Diocesan Representative on the CYP Scrutiny Sub Committee in Croydon. Elaine, worked as a Senior Medical Scientific Officer (Medical Microbiology) within the NHS up until 2000. During that time, she had responsibility for training graduates to attain state registration in addition to her role within the laboratory. She also taught the Medical Microbiology element of the Life Sciences HNC at Bromley College. Elaine is married and lives in Norbury. She has two sons and a grandson. Elaine is a parishioner at The Faithful Virgin, Upper Norwood. In her spare time, she enjoys cricket, actively supporting in Surrey including the Surrey Disability teams as well as Women’s cricket.

Father Simon Peat

Vice-Chair

Father Simon believes in outstanding catholic education which not just provides academic achievement, but also prepares young people to live out the values of Catholic Social Teaching in their future lives. He has been a governor and chair of governors at primary and secondary schools and was a member of the Merton schools’ forum.  He was Chair of governors at St Mary’s RC Primary School in Wimbledon before joining the Sancta Familia Board.  Fr Simon has been parish priest at St Winefride’s Church in Wimbledon for 25 years and as Dean in Merton he consults with local clergy and understands the developments in Catholic education in the area.  Aware of the importance of Catholic Academy trusts, he is conscious of the need to maintain the Catholic ethos and charisms of the schools in this academy trust. He lectured in the St John's Seminary at Wonersh and the Franciscan study centre and is keen to maintain high standards of education and professional development of the teachers and staff of the schools.

Ben Andradi

Ben serves as a Trustee in educational and other Catholic institutions and has extensive experience in this area since retiring from the City a few years ago. In addition to his role at Sancta Familia he serves as a Trustee of the Archdiocese of Southwark, Kent Catholic School Partnership which is one of the largest Catholic Multi Academy Trusts, Southwark Education Commission, St Mary’s Catholic University and the Catholic Children’s Society.  Ben also served as the Chair of St Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, Eltham. Ben attended Wimbledon College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Business School.  He is married with 4 children.

Thomas Gibson

An experienced senior leader in Catholic schools with twenty years' experience as Headteacher at The Holy Cross School, including being the Accounting Officer in this Single Academy Trust, Tom brings a breadth of leadership expertise spanning primary, secondary and sixth form education. He currently works as a Senior School Improvement Partner across schools in Kingston and Richmonda and has worked on secondment for both Ofsted and the Education Commission. He has a master's degree in educational management and a diploma in in special educational needs. He was educated at Sacred Heart School in Merton, Wimbledon College and Loughborough University. He is a parishioner at St John Fisher Church in Morden. All four of his children attended primary and secondary Catholic state schools.

Father Michael Holman SJ

Fr Michael Holman is a Jesuit priest. He was born and grew up in south London and attended Wimbledon College. He joined the Society of Jesus a year after leaving school. While training for the priesthood, he studied philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, then History at Campion Hall in Oxford and finally Theology in Boston before being ordained priest at the Sacred Heart Church in Wimbledon in 1988. Most of his time as a priest has been spent working in Catholic education. After ordination, he studied for a master’s degree in educational administration at the Jesuit university in New York, Fordham. There followed three years as teacher and chaplain back at Wimbledon College and then two years as deputy head teacher at Mount St Mary’s College near Sheffield. He was Head Teacher of Wimbledon College from 1995 until 2004 during which the school grew in size to some 1450 students and further developed the sixth form consortium with the Ursuline High School. From 2005 until 2011, Fr Michael was provincial superior of the Jesuits in Britain and then, from 2012 to 2017, principal of Heythrop College. Since 2018, he has been a part time member of the clergy team at the Jesuit parish in central London, Farm Street, and also, since 2020, superior of the Jesuits in London.  He is delighted to be contributing to the future of Catholic education in a part of London where he has lived and work for much of his life.

Paul O’Donnell

Paul has lived in South London most of his life, settling in Croydon for the last 30 years. He is an Engineering Project Manager currently working for Vodafone. His wife is a University Lecturer. He was a Primary School Governor at the Federation of St Elphege’s and Regina Coeli and a secondary school governor at Coloma Convent School for Girls, leaving both positions to become a Trust Director at Sancta Familia and was the Chair of Governors when Coloma Convent Girls’ School joined the South East London Academy Trust (SELCAT). Paul also volunteers at Croydon Council serving on their Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee supporting the Council’s work with all children and young adults. He has completed governance training every year and also completed Academy Trust training on appointment as a Trust Director. Active at his local church Paul runs the First Holy communion and Confirmation Preparation classes for the candidates. He also enjoys playing Santa at the school Xmas Fayre.

Elizabeth Olulari

Elizabeth Olulari is the National Education Lead for Racial Justice at the Church of England Education Office and CEO of TECALS – Tehilah Transformative Education Consultant and Learning Solutions. With over twenty years of experience in education leadership, Elizabeth has served in roles such as Education Consultant, Head of Science, EDI Director (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion), SENCO, and Safeguarding Lead. She is highly skilled in contextual safeguarding, strategic planning, coaching, curriculum development, and change management. Elizabeth is deeply committed to fostering inclusive educational environments where all pupils can thrive. Her work focuses on mapping school visions, driving cultural change, and ensuring sustainability in initiatives. She advocates for evidence-based research and training on intersectionality and its significance across all protected characteristics, aligning with her commitment to equity and justice in education. Elizabeth also sits on the Board of Directors for a leading publishing company, where she brings her expertise as an author and editor of science textbooks

Lisa Thefaut

A passionate advocate of excellent Catholic education that is evidence-based and delivers both academic excellence and positive personal development for all young people, Lisa was vice-chair of governors at the Ursuline High School prior to joining the Board. Here she was chair of the governors’ Ethos Committee responsible for establishing the Catholic vision and life of the school and the delivery of outstanding religious education.  Before becoming a Governor, she worked at the Ursuline as Director of Extended Learning.  Over 14 years she established and led the school’s highly innovative enrichment programme designed to link the whole curriculum to the wider world of work, demonstrating the relevance of their learning at school to a student’s future success.  This learning scheme is underpinned by Catholic Social Teaching and the Ursuline value of SERVIAM; its aim being to empower young women not just to succeed but to aspire to make a difference to their world.  Lisa also worked for twenty years in NHS management.  She is a parishioner at St Winefride’s Church in South Wimbledon, where she ran the children’s liturgy group for ten years.  Her three children were educated in Catholic schools in Merton.