TES Global Strengthens its Global Leadership Team With New Digital Hires

LONDON, May 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

• Former Auto Trader executive Craig Stevens joins as Chief Commercial Officer  
• Stephen Pinches joins from Pearson as Director of CPD and Teacher Network 
• Lord Jim Knight appointed Chief Education Advisor  
• Former Pearson executive Tom Glover joins as Communications Director 

TES Global, the global digital education business, today announced four new and high profile digital hires and appointments that will further strengthen its global leadership team as the company enters a new phase of accelerated global growth.

Craig Stevens, the former Group Director of Sales & Digital Marketing Services at Auto Trader, joins the business as Chief Commercial Officer. In this role, Craig will lead on all of the company's schools focused commercial business. During almost seventeen years at Auto Trader, Craig oversaw the transformation of the business in a number of key sales roles and as an Executive Director helped the company become one of the most successful digital businesses in Europe.

Stephen Pinches joins TES Global as Director of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Teacher Network. This follows a fifteen-year career in media and education, most recently working as Product Management Director at Pearson English ELT. Stephen also spent many successful years at the Financial Times, including working as Group Product Manager for Mobile & Emerging Platforms, heading up product development for its mobile, tablet and other emerging platforms.

Jim Knight has been appointed as Chief Education Advisor, providing strategic counsel and input into a number of areas including the development of CPD courses and classroom resources. Jim was formerly Managing Director of TES Global's Online Learning business and prior to this was a member of the company's advisory board. His new position recognises the important public advocacy role he plays for the company. Jim is a visiting professor at the UCL Institute of Education and former education minister.

In addition, former Pearson and Financial Times executive Tom Glover joins as Communications Director where he will lead all of TES Global's internal, external and digital communications efforts.

Commenting on the appointments, Rob Grimshaw, Chief Executive of TES Global, said: "Craig, Steve, Jim and Tom bring a wealth of commercial, education and digital experience to TES Global at a very exciting time for our business. I'm delighted we've been able to add more world-class talent to what is already a strong and experienced team. The appointments strengthen our leadership bench and will ensure we have the expertise to match our ambitions as we go even harder and faster at building our global suite of digital teacher services and higher education data and content business."

The fast growing digital education company is looking to help improve performance and standards in education by both supporting the world's teachers with a portfolio of tailored digital services and providing the world's most respected higher education data and analysis. Its global teacher resource-sharing platform now has over 7 million registered users - one in ten of the world's teachers. The company also recently acquired leading online academic jobs market Unijobs, strengthening the Times Higher Education's position as the world's leading higher education media brand.

Notes to editors 

Craig Stevens 

Craig Steven has over 20 years commercial and digital industry experience, including a distinguished 17 year career at Auto Trader where he oversaw the transformation of the business in a number of key sales roles across the company. He was also one of the driving forces behind Auto Trader's transition from a print to a digital business, as well as being instrumental in the strategic commercial development of the leading digital marketing business, Razsor. He has sat on the board of the Chinese investment, IAUTOS Company Limited and most recently has acted as a consultant for a number of private equity backed investments.

Stephen Pinches 

Stephen Pinches has worked in media and education for over 15 years. Most recently he headed up Pearson's ELT product management team, focused on the transition from purely print based to digital and blended models of English language teaching and assessment. Prior to that, he spent over a decade at the Financial Times where he started as a graduate trainee before moving into business and product development for FT.com. This included leading the FT's highly successful move into mobile and tablet delivery, as well as other areas such as video, blogging and APIs, launching a string of award-winning products. He is a qualified ELT teacher who has taught English in Mexico, Ecuador, Spain and the UK. He is a graduate of the University of Warwick and received his MBA from Instituto de Empresa, Madrid.

Jim Knight, The Rt Hon Lord Knight of Weymouth 

Jim Knight is Chief Education Advisor at TES Global. In his previous role at the company he was the Managing Director of Online Learning, where he built an online teacher development platform.  He is a member of the House of Lords and a visiting Professor at the London Knowledge Lab of the Institute of Education. As a minister his portfolios included rural affairs, schools, digital and employment.  He attended weekly Cabinet in 2009-2010, before joining the Lords after the 2010 General Election. Jim is also involved in developing solar powered digital projectors for wireless use with iPads in schools in Africa and Asia, and on malaria diagnosis using smartphones. He is chair of the Tinder Foundation and the Nominet Trust.

Tom Glover 

Tom Glover is the Communications Director for digital education company TES Global where he has responsibility for all global external, internal and digital communications. He has over 15 years experience in-house and agency, successfully managing the corporate reputation and advising the C-suite executives of some of the world's biggest education, technology, mobile and media brands. In his previous role, Tom was the SVP Strategic Communications at Pearson with responsibility for education technology corporate communications and global corporate digital, social media and content communications strategy. At the FT, Tom's roles included Deputy Director of Communications and Acting Director of Communications where he was responsible for helping shift perceptions of the company from a traditional publisher to a digital news organisation and led the company's social media strategy.

About TES Global 

TES Global is a fast growing and global digital education company. Our mission is to help improve performance and standards in education by both supporting the world's teachers with a portfolio of tailored digital services and providing the world's most respected higher education data and analysis. It is home to the world's largest online community of teachers, with 7 million registered users, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. For more information, visit http://www.tesglobal.com