Executive experience, applied where it matters most.
Sterren Consulting partners with CEOs, Chairs and Executive Teams to navigate significant organisational challenges — and turn strategy into delivery.
Built on experience. Designed to grow.
Sterren Consulting is an executive transformation and strategic advisory consultancy, initially focused on the education sector and Multi Academy Trusts. We help ambitious leaders make confident decisions about growth, structure, governance and delivery — and then help them see those decisions through.
We are deliberately not positioned as an HR consultancy. The proposition is broader: supporting the most significant challenges a leadership team faces, from operating-model redesign and merger integration to board effectiveness and complex change.
While clients are currently buying the experience and judgement of our founder, Sterren is designed to grow into a larger consultancy over time — and to translate beyond education into other sectors as it does.
30
academies supported as an Executive leader
2,500+
colleagues across a complex multi-academy trust
99
colleagues in scope for a major organisational redesign
£1.2m+
efficiency savings identified through redesign
Experience behind the advice.
Sterren's work is grounded in first-hand Executive responsibility for the organisational challenges clients are facing.
Executive leadership at scale
Executive experience within a 30-academy trust employing more than 2,500 colleagues, alongside Acting COO-level leadership in a growing MAT.
Complex transformation delivery
Led trust-wide operating-model redesign across people, finance, estates, systems and school operations, including formal consultation and implementation.
Board and growth perspective
Worked directly with Chief Executives, Chairs and Boards on strategy, governance, risk, organisational growth and the integration of additional academies.
A senior leader who has sat where you sit.
Stephen Watson brings a career of executive leadership across large, complex organisations, with a track record at Chief People Officer and COO level. He has led and supported growth, merger and integration, operating-model change and board-level governance.
For clients, that means working directly with someone who understands the reality of executive decision-making — the pressure, the trade-offs and the weight of getting it right — rather than a faceless firm.
Depth of experience
- Chief People Officer and COO-level leadership
- Large, complex, multi-site organisations
- Trust growth, mergers and integration
- Governance and board-level advisory
- Executive coaching and top-team development
- Complex, multi-year change programmes
The principles behind every engagement.
Judgement over jargon
Real experience in the seats that matter, not a generic playbook. We give the honest, informed view a board needs to hear.
Delivery, not just advice
Strategy only counts when it happens. We stay close to the work until change is real and embedded.
Partnership, not dependency
We build the capability of your leaders so the improvement outlasts our involvement.
Standards without compromise
Growth and change should raise the quality of education, never dilute it. That principle guides every decision.
Let's talk about where you're heading.
If you're facing a significant decision or change, a short, candid conversation is the best place to start.