EdTech Exchange x The Key Group: How do we empower humans on the AI journey?

Chair: Matthew Koster-Marcon, CEO, Learning Ladders Education

Matt is the Founding CEO of Learning Ladders Education, an award-winning EdTech platform that improves school assessment data management and parental involvement in learning for International Schools across Early Years, Primary and Lower Secondary. He is a former teacher, education author, speaker, Trustee at the charity School Home Support, and is also Chair of Governors at his local school. Matt has been a member of the Executive Council since 2017, and served as Chair of the EdTech Special Interest Group for 5 years. He was voted by BESA members to be Vice Chair in 2024.

Lee Newman, Education Publisher, HarperCollins Publishers

Lee Newman is the Education and Children’s Publisher at Collins, with overarching strategic responsibility and accountability for Collins’ education publishing, covering commissioning across early years, primary and secondary phase education in the UK and for international curricula. She also directs Collins children’s publishing under the Barrington Stoke, Rocket Bird Books, and Collins children’s non-fiction imprints.

Lee spent ten years in school governance at a primary school in North Herts and is currently Chair of the Education Publishers Council at the Publishers Association; a trustee of Book Aid International; and founding co-chair of HarperCollins Social Mobility staff network.

Chris Kenyon, CEO, The Key Group

Chris Kenyon joined The Key Group in February 2019 to build on its mission of supporting better decision-making and ways of working in British schools. With a background in technology, Chris has welcomed Arbor, GovernorHub, Integris, TimeTabler, SAMpeople and Habitude into the group. The Key Group now provides services to over 20,000 schools, including over 12,000 that use Arbor, the UK’s market-leading cloud-based MIS. Chris is deeply involved in developing AI-based solutions within the group, both for existing products such as Ask Arbor and KeyGPT, and those developed in-house, such as Robin Education.

Previously, Chris was responsible for the commercial growth of Ubuntu, the world’s leading cloud operating system. Chris is also a governor of a Primary School in North London.

Dawn Taylor, Founder and Director, Challenge Innovate Grow

Dawn Taylor is a recognised voice on AI in education and an EdTech advisor working at the intersection of pedagogy, assessment, and technology. With a background in school leadership, she brings a rare dual perspective—understanding both the realities of classrooms and the strategic demands of edtech development. She works with schools, trusts, and international organisations to navigate the profound shifts AI is bringing to teaching and learning, with a focus on governance, assessment, and protecting the integrity of the learning process. In parallel, she advises edtech companies on product design, pedagogical alignment, and go-to-market strategy, ensuring their solutions are credible, effective, and aligned with how learning actually happens. Her work bridges the gap between education and technology—translating classroom needs into product insight, and product capability into meaningful educational impact.