John Butler

Director of Finance

John has extensive expertise within a range of finance, operational and sales roles in the education sector, both nationally and globally. He is passionate about delivering results which will make a difference in the lives of children and families.

John started his career in KPMG in Ireland before moving to New York. From there, he moved to Chicago with Deloitte and Touché, where he qualified as a CPA. Since moving to London in 2001, John has spent most of his time in the Education Sector.

John was Chief Finance Officer for EduAction (Waltham Forest), a joint venture between Nord Anglia PLC and Amey, before being appointed as the Managing Director. During his time there, John and his team succeeded in raising the attainment of the students throughout the Borough as well as elevating all schools out of special measures. John then worked as Commercial Director with Nord Anglia in its education improvement division, followed by a period with Tribal Education where he successfully introduced Tribal to the US market, winning a large school improvement contract in the Nashville School district.

More recently, John ran the operations in Europe for Ellucian, the largest provider of global Student Information systems, before joining a global software developer Thoughtworks Inc, as UK Head of Finance. He then moved to a startup Edtech company, Firefly Learning Ltd and finally a fintech Company, Syntec Ltd as CFO, where he successfully led the sale of the company at the end of 2021.