With hundreds of centres all over the globe, it takes a whole team of brilliant people to lead a company like Busy Bees.
We have a strong central management model, with a seasoned management team who have extensive early years education experience, including founding member, Marg Randles.
The group leadership team provides clear guidance globally, promoting consistency and sharing best practise, while still allowing territories to maintain autonomy, use local expertise and deliver the right service for the families they serve.
Simon Irons
Group Chief Executive Officer
Simon has been involved with Busy Bees for more than thirty years and took over from co-founder John Woodward to become our Group CEO in 2018.
He advised on our business plans as early as 1989 and, in 1998 he joined the board. In 2000, he became a full-time member of the management team as our Chief Financial Officer. He has supported us from the very beginning too, having sent his three sons to the first ever Busy Bees childcare centre, Rocklands, in Lichfield, UK
Cheryl Creaser
Group Chief Operating Officer
Cheryl began her career with us in 1997 and has worked her way up to Group COO, responsible for operations worldwide.
As a mother of two boys, Cheryl also understands what life is like as a Busy Bees parent. Her dedication to delivering exceptional childcare balanced with her commercial acumen has helped Busy Bees to become what it is today, and she is excited about continuing to drive excellence as we keep growing.
Matt Davies
Group Chief Financial Officer
Matt joined as our Group Chief Financial Officer at the end of 2018, bringing many years of experience in financial and operational leadership roles across a number of international public and private equity owned businesses. Before joining Busy Bees, he was based out of Dubai, leading the Middle East and Asia region of a private equity owned laboratory testing business.
Matt runs our global finance function with responsibility for financial performance across the group. He also leads on banking and investor relations, with responsibility for IT, property and M&A.
Marg Randles OBE
Chief Academic Officer
One of the co-founders of Busy Bees in 1983, Marg is committed to making sure we deliver exceptional care and education.
Marg is a qualified teacher and worked with children with complex needs before she founded the very first Busy Bees in Lichfield, Staffordshire. Her decades of experience, along with her brilliant connections with the government, local authorities, and national associations, have helped us to get where we are today.
Ceri Williams-Jones
Group General Counsel
Before she joined Busy Bees in 2019, Ceri was in-house legal counsel at Rolls-Royce, helping the global engineering group manage risk on projects - especially mergers and acquisitions.
As Busy Bees' Group General Counsel, Ceri is our legal lead, providing us with strategic legal advice, overseeing our relationships with external legal advisers, and managing legal risk and governance across the group.
Charlotte Hutchings
Group Chief People Officer
Charlotte joined Busy Bees in 2022, bringing a wealth of experience gained in a variety of strategic HR leadership positions within the hospitality and facilities management sectors. She leads the group's global people strategy, targeting four key areas: talent acquisition and retention, growing future talent, leadership development and employee engagement.
Charlotte is a former Busy Bees parent, so has experienced the Busy Bees difference first-hand.
James Walker
Group Chief Marketing Officer
James joined Busy Bees in 2020, bringing more than 20 years of senior international marketing experience across consumer, business, retail, digital, leisure and tourism, working with high profile global brands including Merlin Entertainments' Resort Theme Park division, the Watches of Switzerland Group, and Interflora.
As our global CMO, James is focused on delivering profitable occupancy growth for all our centres through high-profile marketing programmes, driving brand awareness and ensuring high levels of parent satisfaction and child retention.
Gill Jones MBE
Group Chief Quality Officer
Gill joined Busy Bees in November 2022 after serving as one of His Majesty's Inspectors and the Deputy Director of Schools and Early Years at Ofsted, the UK inspector of education, training and childcare services. After a highly successful career as a headteacher, at Ofsted she played a leading role creating inspection frameworks and advising the Department for Education and childcare practitioners on the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and the teaching of reading.
In January 2023, Gill was awarded an MBE for her services to education.
James Lyons
Group M&A Director
James joined Busy Bees in 2022 to lead our global M&A function, providing oversight of all M&A activity, including developing our expansion strategy into new geographies.
James brings nearly 20 years of corporate finance and M&A experience, having started his career in investment banking before moving into senior M&A positions at FTSE listed corporates. During this time, he has led new country entry projects, deal origination initiatives and post-acquisition integrations.
James has two young sons and understands what a difference high quality childcare can make to children and their parents.
Chief Executive Officers
Chris McCandless
Chief Executive Officer
Chris joined Busy Bees in 2019 and successfully led our European operations until his appointment as European Chief Executive in 2023. His strategic focus is on supporting our aspiration to become the largest childcare group in the world, ensuring more children have access to the best start in life.
Chris' started his career in the UK retail and leisure industries, where he developed key strengths including building high-performing teams, and ensuring colleagues are supported to achieve their full potential.
June Rusdon
Chief Executive Officer
A successful entrepreneur and trendsetter in early childhood and teachers' education, June founded the Learning Vision childcare centre group and developed our premium proposition Odyssey, The Global Preschool, both of which are now part of the Busy Bees Asia family.
With more than twenty years spent leading and growing businesses by putting children and families first, nurturing talent, and promoting strong processes, June's management experience and incredible reputation in childcare are helping us to grow Busy Bees Asia.
Mary Ann Curran
Chief Executive Officer
Mary Ann has been part of what is now known as Busy Bees North America since 2012, helping the company raise the bar for early years education in Canada. Before moving into childcare, she gained over twenty years' experience in strategic roles, including holding executive positions at well-known brands.
Today Mary Ann leads our work in North America, overseeing centres across Canada and the United States. Motivated by her passion for education and childcare, she is driving our mission and business as we expand across the continent.
Phil McKenzie
Chief Executive Officer
With a background in multisite retail and allied health service offerings across Australia, Asia Pacific and the US, Phil brings a wealth of international leadership experience.
His primary reason for joining Busy Bees was the deep importance of early childhood education and the exciting challenge of developing a first-class team which will grow a market-leading organisation in Australia and New Zealand.
Phil has two teenage daughters who keep him grounded, humble and always learning something new.
Leanne Mortlock
Chief Executive Officer
With a background in Health and Education, Leanne has a proven track record of creating high-performing businesses with people at the heart of all they do.
Under Leanne's leadership, Busy Bees New Zealand has developed a culture that values its people, resulting in a strong and united network of teachers that are passionate about the children, families, and the communities they serve.
The vision of Leanne and her teams for excellence in early childhood education is supported by their focus on partnering with families to nurture children to thrive in their unique potential.