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Al Kingsley MBE · EdTech vendor advisory

Challenge before you commit.

I’ve run an EdTech business for three decades and chaired the boards that buy from businesses like yours. Put that in the room before a launch, a price change or a new market, and you hear how it lands before it costs you anything.

Al Kingsley in relaxed conversation in a studio, arms crossed

Where I’m useful.

Education is a market that punishes guesswork. This is the work vendors bring me in for.

Proposition teardown A structured, honest read of your product, pricing and story, judged the way schools and trusts will actually judge it.
Launch and market-entry reviews The realistic read before the budget gets committed, including whether the market you’re eyeing is the right one at all.
Positioning What you’re selling, who actually buys it, and whether the story you tell survives contact with a school leader.
Board and advisory input Formal or informal: non-executive challenge, advisory board seats, and a straight answer when everyone else in the room reports to you.
Product and procurement insight How schools and trusts really evaluate, buy and renew, from someone who has written the questions they ask.

Why me.

CEO of NetSupport, an internationally recognised EdTech company based in the UK, US and Germany. Chair of BESA’s EdTech Group. On the buying side, a multi-academy trust chair and school governor for more than twenty years, which is exactly the audience you’re selling to. And I wrote 200 Questions for Evaluating Technology in Schools, so I know the scrutiny your product faces because I drafted it.

Brands and organisations I’ve worked with include ParentPay Group, Bromcom, TP-Link, BenQ, Huawei, IRIS, Groupcall, Toddle, Cambridge OCR and the Department for Education, plus dozens of multi-academy trusts.

Start a conversation

Retained, or a single day to pressure-test a plan before it goes anywhere public. If a day is enough, I’ll tell you it’s a day.

Also here: critical friend for trust and school leaders · the books · media

Judged in public, hired in private.

One thing you will not find on this page is a list of advisory clients. Businesses rarely announce the help they take, and I never announce it for them. If we work together, your name stays as private as your strategy.

What I can show you is how the sector’s own institutions rate the judgement you would be buying, and the evidence base underneath it: EduDirectory, the schools database I run across 200 countries.

Business Person of the Year winner screen at the Peterborough Business Awards, with the award on the shelf beside it
Business Person of the Year, Peterborough Business Awards 2025

‘Al is a shining light of the EdTech world. He champions and creates opportunities for teachers, school leaders and EdTech suppliers to work together constructively to share knowledge and best practice.’

Caroline Wright · Director General, British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)

‘His depth of experience, genuine understanding of the challenges facing schools and multi-academy trusts, and perspective from the front line of education have been invaluable to us. Al’s guidance has helped shape and strengthen our offering.’

Dan Grogan · Managing Director and Co-Founder, Smart Meetings

Enquiries

Planning an event, or planning to grow?

For events, tell me the date, the audience and what you want the day to achieve. For consulting, tell me where you’re trying to get to. Either way I’ll be straight with you about whether I’m the right fit, and if I’m not, I probably know who is.

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