Company

FOUNDERS and DIRECTORS

Robin Horsell

Co-Founder

Robin has a background in the supply of garments and beauty products to large UK retailers including Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Superdrug. He also has been a long suffering parent of three children, so lived the misery of school uniform shopping before Schoolblazer!

Tim James

Co-Founder

Tim has a retail background and was Buying and Marketing Director of Homebase. He continues to have one foot in Buying and another in Marketing for Schoolblazer.

Louise Crofts

Managing Director

Louise is the rock on which the business is founded and keeps a firm handle on the tiller to make sure we’re on the right course and avoiding icebergs! As Managing Director, Louise has responsibility for all aspects of day-to-day management, including buying, finance and operations. If Louise says it can’t be done, you can be sure that every avenue has been explored!

Jane Dexter

Finance Director

Jane is our Finance Director. She is a fully qualified ACMA and is very clever. She is the navigator that prevents the Schoolblazer ship hitting the rocks. Jane is responsible for producing our management accounts and we are grateful for her diligence in delivering them accurately and on time. Jane works with Tim to ensure our bank’s continued support, delivering our A* credit rating.

Ray Beaumont

Technology Director

Technology Director, Ray Beaumont looks after all our IT needs at head office, in our warehouse and on the web. He also leads the design, development and support of our bespoke e-commerce and back-office systems. His background includes a diverse range of businesses, most recently as CTO at Hemscott PLC.

Clare Burrows

Commercial Director

Clare has worked at Schoolblazer for over 10 years, spending most of her time with Robin. She deserves a medal, but instead we promoted her to Commercial Director with a seat on the board. Clare oversees our schools’ management and business development teams, and makes sure that all our school customers can’t stop talking about how fabulous we are! If there is a problem, Clare is all over it making sure that it’s resolved instantly.

Sean Ryan

Operations Director

Sean is the legend that is our Operations Director. Sean joined the business as a packer and has risen through the ranks to run our whole Schoolblazer Logistics operation with a seat on the board. This is no mean feat. He has responsibility for distributing nearly half a million items over the summer period and sewing on 5½ miles of name tapes per day! Sean has a major focus on operational sustainability and efficiency.

Steve Tuck

Buying and Merchandising Director

Steve heads up our growing Buying and Merchandising Team and oversees all sportswear and uniform purchasing, making regular trips to our factories in Indonesia and Sri Lanka to monitor production and to source new products. A board member, Steve also ensures that our suppliers meet our strict ethical and environmental standards. Steve is a keen oarsman, regularly testing our Limitless sportswear products himself.

Our teams

Amanda Andrews

Product Manager

Amanda works on our new school implementations, ensuring every product detail is signed off by our customers and making sure through her diligence there are no c*ck ups! She also builds our new school websites, ensuring they are delivered to you on time and to specification. She brightens our day with her smile and constant inappropriate innuendos.

Laura Sharrock-Long

Account Manager

Laura is an experienced Account Manager who works alongside Clare, making sure that all of our school customers are happy, managing our critical paths and ensuring we deliver to our new schools on time and to specification.

Tegan barr

Product Manager

Tegan has joined us as Product Manager to support the team with our new schools. Tegan has previous experience of face painting on her CV which will be a great addition to the famous Schoolblazer BBQ!

emily wilson

Sales Administrator - Sportswear

Emily is our new Sales Administrator for Sportswear and is responsible for the timely delivery of our Limitless staff wear and teamwear orders. Emily ensures orders are processed on time for our customers and will move mountains to make sure that schools and teams have everything they need. In her spare time, Emily has an allotment where she indulges her love of gardening.

CHARLOTTE PENNEY

Account Manager

Charlotte joined Schoolblazer as an Account Manager, to help the team manage our growing number of schools. With more than ten years’ experience working in account management, her friendly demeanour and professionalism are a perfect fit for the task in hand.

oliver johnston

Junior Product Manager

Oliver joined us as a Junior Product Manager to support our busy Product Managers. Having recently completed a degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Ollie also has experience in Customer Services and Logistics, so we are sure he will be a great help to our Schools Team, and will soon assume responsibility for his own schools too!

charlotte fry

Business Development Manager

Charlotte comes to us with strong experience of designing high street fashion at Next, New Look and George. With a brief to further develop our ranges for new and existing schools, Charlotte will also be visiting schools to showcase our designs.

meaka wheatley

Senior Designer

Meaka is our Senior Designer, helping our Schools team with gorgeous computer-aided garment designs, and collections. Also a graphic designer, she's a great help to the company! In her application, Meaka said she wanted to use art and design to help change the world for the better, which fits perfectly with Schoolblazer.

bianca manganiello

Junior Designer

Bianca is our Junior Designer, working alongside Meaka to create our beautiful uniform and sportswear designs. A recent graduate from Nottingham Trent in Woven Design, Bianca also enjoys sports and rowing, as well as weaving in her spare time, of course!

chris roberts

Limitless Business Development Manager

Chris joined our growing Schools team in 2022 to further develop the Limitless side of the business. His background as an Assistant Director of Sport and coach gives him a unique insight into the challenges schools face to ensure all students enjoy and participate in sport and school life. With his sporting heritage and management experience, Chris will help advance Limitless sportswear.

Tom Bryant

National Teamwear Manager

Tom joined us with tonnes of sporting experience gained working as Regional Sales Manager at Pentland Brands Ltd. (Mitre and Canterbury), as well as at Samurai Sportswear. A very skilled sportsman himself, he will be responsible with Chris for making sure the only thing our Directors of Sport talk about is Limitless!

kate haywood

Account Manager and Limitless Ambassador

Kate is a decorated double Olympian having represented GB at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. Her experience as an elite female athlete as well as being an athlete mentor will be invaluable to our Limitless brand. Her main focus will be working with our schools to ensure students are encouraged to be active. We’re excited to have Kate join the team!

Louise Allard

Marketing Manager

Louise speaks several languages, including French, German and Marketing! Her expertise means the brands of Schoolblazer and Limitless are always on message and looking their best. She also has insight into the sporting world as an ex-hockey player – perfect for relating to the teenagers who wear our kit.

Maisie Huseyin

Brand Manager

Maisie joined our expanding team to look after marketing for Schoolblazer. We have built an enviable reputation with our schools and are always first choice when it comes to considering change; Maisie is responsible for keeping Schoolblazer front of mind. Maisie is a graduate of Loughborough University in English, as well as a trained barista!

iona mccall

Marketing Intern

Iona joins us from De Montfort University as one of four interns in 2023/2024. A Business Management student, Iona is super organised and loves stationery, so she fits right in with the Marketing team! She also has qualifications in sports leadership.

Alison Thorpe

Customer Care Director

Alison heads up our Customer Care Team and if you find that your call has been referred to our Head Office you will invariably hear from Alison. Her calm and sunny demeanour will smooth any crisis! You can be sure she will move heaven and earth to help resolve your query.

Leigh Smith

Customer Care Executive

Leigh joined our Customer Services team from the medical research industry. His cheery personality is perfect for our customer-facing team and he is always on hand to help parents with questions.

Charlotte Clay

Senior Buyer

Charlotte is responsible for all of our uniform and sportswear product development. She often travels to Indonesia to make sure our garments are being made to the highest standards and our manufacturers are meeting their obligations on ethical trading. She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Schoolblazer garments after more than 10 years of working with us.

Darren Taft

Senior Merchandiser

Darren joined Schoolblazer to boost our Merchandising team. That’s a massive task, we have over 40,000 products and Darren has to make sure they are all in stock, all of the time, without having too much. It’s the definition of a thankless task, but he will be up for it, having spent most of his working life working for a big Marks and Spencer supplier, trying to predict their whittling demand (another thankless task!).

Niamh Harrington

Buyer

Niamh came to help us out on Customer Services over the summer of 2018 and liked it so much that she begged to come back for her year’s placement from Northumbria University. After graduating with a first, she returned to us as an Assistant Buyer and her first major responsibility was helping to organise the famous Schoolblazer Christmas party! Niamh sources our sportswear and has an excellent foundation from working through each department over her placement year.

Madison Smith

Buyer

Madison joined Schoolblazer in 2019 as an intern from De Montfort University. We believe in getting our interns immersed in every aspect of our business. There is no tea making. She loved it so much she decided that she wanted to come back and after achieving a magnificent first in Fashion Buying and Marketing she is now bringing youth to our buying team.

Debbie Smith

Import/Export Coordinator

Debbie is a vital part of the Buying team. She is responsible for shipping so works very hard to ensure our product does not get stuck in customs or held up by Brexit style red tape. She’s a mother of two and a little older than the others so has to stop listening when the younger members of the office are discussing their weekend antics.

Daniel Legon

Merchandiser

Daniel joined us as a Merchandiser, working alongside Darren and Julie. Previously he worked with Go Outdoors, Asics and Dunelm in merchandising so he must be used to being blamed for not having enough or having too much stock! Luckily for Daniel, there’s no blame culture at Schoolblazer – we just learn and try to find a better way next time. Daniel, Darren and Lara are part-based in our Mansfield office/warehouse, so they can be in touch with Operations Director, Sean.

Rachael Collins

Garment Technologist

Rachael is a graduate of De Montfort University and pursued a career in garment technology working for several second division retailers including Tesco, Next and Boden before seeing the light and joining premiership Schoolblazer. Rachael can often be seen working with our Alvanons and knows them on a first-name basis!

Julie Catling

Merchandiser

Julie is responsible for all of uniform purchasing. That is a very complicated task as there are so many variations but through her great tenacity she gets it right! Julie makes sure that we have the right levels of stock in our warehouse to fulfil all of our orders and spends her time chasing our suppliers to ensure that our stock arrives in good time. Outside of work she loves bellringing and the WI. No! Don’t judge her; she’s lovely!

Stephen Lewins

Data Analyst

Stephen is responsible for the merchandising of our uniform and sportswear and uses clever forecasting tools to help the buying team to purchase the appropriate levels of stock for each school. Stephen has a mathematics degree and talks in a language that only Tim really understands.

Lara Bates

Fabric Co-ordinator

Lara is the newest addition to our expanding Mansfield-based merchandising team. With experience as a Junior Buyer, we are sure she will make a great contribution to the team as Fabric Co-ordinator.

kimberley webster

Buying Intern

Kim is one of four interns joining us from De Montfort University in 2023/2024 and is studying Fashion Buying with Buying. She has a lot of retail experience and is looking to be challenged as she begins her career in Merchandising. She will certainly be challenged at Schoolblazer; no tea-making here!

Robbie Smart

Merchandising Administrator

Robbie Smart left the company in January 2020. At his exit interview he said “Schoolblazer was the best company he had ever worked for”. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, his plans did not work out so we are delighted to welcome Robbie back as Merchandising Administrator. Robbie, as we expected was straight back in the saddle helping the team chasing down deliveries to our warehouse.

lia modha

Buying Intern

Lia is one of four interns joining us from De Montfort University in 2023/2024 and is studying Fashion Buying with Design. She is eager to see more of the fashion industry and look at designs and trends, something we do often at Schoolblazer!

ERRIN BONSER

Garment Technology Intern

Errin is one of four interns joining us from De Montfort University in 2023/2024 and is studying Fashion Design. Errin has a deep interest in garment technology and 3D Pattern Development, can sew by hand and has Graphic Design experience as well. We are sure she will be kept very busy at Schoolblazer!

‍

Natalie Satchwell

Assistant Merchandiser

Natalie started working for Schoolblazer in our Mansfield warehouse, but we’ve stolen her to fulfil a merchandising role! She also holds a level two certificate in accounting – perfect prep for all those spreadsheets.

Julie Shields

Finance Assistant

Julie looks after the Schoolblazer financial administration and is responsible for paying, not making excuses to, our fantastic suppliers. She also has the most important job in the office – paying the team’s wages and their expenses. You’ll often see Julie telling Robin off for incorrect expense claims; she says he’s worse than politicians! Julie is always the life and soul of the Schoolblazer Christmas party.

Kim Dodd

Management Accountant

Kim has worked her way up from a secretarial role in her first job to being a fully qualified accountant to MAAT level. You’ve got to admire anyone who has achieved that whilst having to earn a living. There’s no doubt her enthusiastic outlook will shake up our accounts, helping Jane to navigate the company away from any icebergs.

George edwards

Finance Assistant

George works for us as a Finance Assistant, helping Jane, Julie and Kim to navigate the accounting waters at Schoolblazer. He is studying for his full MAAT membership and loves a good spreadsheet. George brought in doughnuts on his first day, so he could not be more popular!

MARK NALLY

Agile Delivery Manager

Mark became our new Agile Delivery Manager at the start of 2022, and has taken charge of our brilliant development team, ensuring it is running efficiently. He is extremely active in his spare time, with his hobbies including snowboarding, E-Skating, wakeboarding, water skiing and bodyboarding.

FREYA DIXON

Junior Developer

Freya is our newest and first ever Junior Developer. She comes from a geography background so is sure to win the capital cities round at the next Schoolblazer quiz! Freya's software development skills are advancing at pace as she works with the team, building and maintaining our amazing IT systems. She is a strong advocate for getting more women coding, something Schoolblazer wholeheartedly supports!

HAYDEN MELVILLE

Senior Analyst Programmer

Hayden works in our IT Department on something called software. His CV has words like Widget, Android and something called GitHub. It’s a total mystery to us all, but one thing we do know is we wouldn’t be without his cheerful smile and super helpful demeanour.

JON HUDSON

Infrastructure Manager

Jon is the IT wiz of the office. He defected from our excellent IT support company, Cambridge Networks, to join the Schoolblazer team. Whenever anything goes wrong IT-wise, Jon is your man. Like when Robin can’t log on to Facebook or other such crises! Jon attended the now famous Schoolblazer summer barbeque. We think this event alone persuaded him to jump ship.

MELVIN BURTON

QA Tester

Melvin made his mark at “Alert me”, more commonly known as Hive. This clever technology remotely controls all aspects of your home and was bought by British Gas for a tidy sum. Unfortunately Melvin was not a shareholder so has had the foresight to join another clever company, Schoolblazer. In his role he will test the amazing gizmos our IT development team come up with and send it back if it doesn’t work. There is no “Hive” for the IT developers!

RENEE MYRIE

QA Analyst

Renee works with Melvin to QC the work that our developers produce so that we don’t unleash bugs on our customers. Renee is a qualified microbiologist, so bugs are her specialty.

JIM MCKERCHAR

Analyst Programmer

Jim’s CV states that his key skills include Ruby, Ruby On Rails and Sinatra – We are yet to hear is rendition of “My Way” but look forward to ol’ blue eyes stealing the show at the Christmas party! In his spare time Jim produces music and plays the guitar (unsurprisingly).

Leonard Percival

Senior Analyst Programmer

Lenny has joined us as a Senior Analyst/Programmer, working alongside our Director of IT. His CV is also intimidatingly full of acronyms that none outside of the dark side of coding would understand, but also reveals a love of blacksmithing, solo kayaking for charity and being multilingual – perfect for the Schoolblazer team!

BEN WRIGHT

Analyst Programmer

Ben is our resident back-end guru and the Sultan of Sarcasm! Armed with a binary brain and a black belt in grumpiness, Ben is our go-to guy for all things code-related. Don't let his cantankerous exterior fool you though - Ben's got a heart of gold and a helpful demeanour that's always ready to assist his colleagues. His superpowers include fixing bugs with a mere flick of his keyboard and transforming complex algorithms into elegant code like a boss.

Leanne Ryan

Stock Control Manager

As the name suggests, Leanne is Sean’s sister. Leanne is the Schoolblazer font of all knowledge! She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of our product range and takes responsibility for all goods in and processes all garments arriving at the warehouse. Leanne ensures these pass our rigorous QC examinations prior to release to the pick face.

Quality, Service and Innovation, guaranteed

CULTURE AND VALUES

CULTURE AND VALUES

FOUNDERS and DIRECTORS

Our teams