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Founder’s Day is in many ways the highlight of the year for the entire Queen Elizabeth’s School community – which emphatically includes our old boys, as well as current QE families. I was so pleased to see and meet so many Old Elizabethans at this year’s celebration, with the numbers swelled particularly by past pupils from recent generations.

I hope to see equally large numbers of past pupils at our next major alumni event, The Old Elizabethans’ Association Dinner on Friday 17th November. It is always an enjoyable occasion and I do hope that many reading this will accept this invitation to come along and hear our guest speaker, Robert ‘Judge’ Rinder (1989–1994).

The preceding day, Thursday 16th November, sees another occasion with heavy involvement from our old boys, our annual Careers Convention for Year 11 boys and their parents. We are always interested to hear from old boys who would be prepared to share their professional experience and expertise: if you are interested, do, please, contact my office.

Founder’s Day 2017 marked 444 years of the School’s history. The day began as usual with our Thanksgiving Service at Chipping Barnet Parish Church, followed by the procession back to the School and the Roll Call and Reading of the Chronicle in front of the Main Building.

Our guest speaker at the service was an old boy, guest speaker Ashley-James Turner (OE 2001–2008), who is today Director of Business Development at CoreAzure, a leading Microsoft UK Partner specialising in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

After his A-levels, Ashley-James went up to Oxford to read Geography. Upon graduating in 2011, he began work in the field of sustainability and environmental science, before making the transition into IT. But he cheerfully admitted to the congregation: “As anyone who knows me will be able to attest, I am not the most obvious candidate when it comes to technology. As my IT team tell me, the biggest threat to my laptop isn’t malware – it’s me! I still cannot figure out how to connect my iPhone with the car’s handsfree, and heaven forbid should I try to navigate through satellite television…”

He reflected on how technology had moved on in the brief period since he was at QE – “we had white boards that were on rollers…and I can remember when I thought Snake on the Nokia 3310 was surely the greatest technological triumph of the 21st century”. Today, Ashley-James counts the support he is able to provide to educational institutions such as QE in dispersing the latest advances in technology as one of the privileges of his job.

The service featured anthems from composers including Vaughan Williams, Tavener and Rutter performed by School musicians and the School and Chamber choirs. Bible readings were given by current School Captain Oliver Robinson, and his predecessor, Varun Vassanth, while the Headmaster led the prayer of remembrance for old boys who had died recently.

Once the formalities were concluded, the Founder’s Day Fete and the annual Stanley Busby Memorial Cricket Match took place. As is now the custom, the match featured a team of alumni taking on the present School First XI on the Third Field.

This year, it was present pupils who won, but by the narrowest of margins. Batting first, the old boys set 165 for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs. The innings highlight was the 91 from 57 balls from Kushal Patel (OE 2009–2016). Director of Sport Jonathan Hart said: “It shows that spending a year out in Australia playing Grade cricket has put him in good touch.”

The First XI lost a couple of early wickets, but a 46 from the in-form Kevin Van der Geest and a 59 from Ayush Shah had the game looking safe.  However, once they were both out, things became very close, Mr Hart reported. “With the game tied and two balls remaining, a sharp piece of fielding from Ram Sivarajah gained a run-out. So it was down to the last ball, and it was the First XI who claimed victory, managing to secure the one run required to win.“

On the Stapylton Field, the fete presented a colourful spectacle at which OEs and all our other guests had ample opportunity to relax and have some fun on an unusually hot early summer’s day. Performances by School musicians contributed to the vibrant, festive atmosphere, as did the stalls selling a wide variety of international cuisines. The fete, which is the culmination of many months of planning by the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s, raised an impressive total of almost £20,000 for the School this year.

Neil Enright

FUTURE EVENTS

Careers Convention

• Autumn 2017: Thursday 16th November 2017
• To include pre-event reception for participating OE volunteers
• Email Matthew Rose (OE) in the Headmaster's Office to volunteer

OE Association Dinner

• Friday 17th November 2017
• Guest speaker: Robert Rinder (OE 1989–1994)
• Tickets will be available from the online shop in September

For more information about alumni events, please contact the Headmaster's office

Old Elizabethan Aidan Radnedge is Chief Reporter at Metro, which last month overtook The Sun to become the UK’s biggest weekday newspaper by circulation.

Aidan (OE 1988-1995) reports on major national and international events and has worked as a war correspondent and an international undercover journalist. He has also written books on world football and about the Olympics.

He follows in the footsteps of his father, Keir Radnedge, a noted football journalist who has written for World Soccer magazine for around half-a-century and is the author of 33 books. One brother, Noel (OE 1993-2000), is an IT expert, while another, Lyndon, is a senior diplomat with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who was Deputy Head of Mission in Montenegro and is currently stationed in Nigeria.

“I have very fond memories of QE,” says Aidan, who recalls, in particular, “trips to Germany to appreciate and enrich our understanding of friendly counterparts”.  He won QE prizes and commendations for Music, History and Politics and was a Form Captain. School records show that he gained some early journalistic experience by working on the Underne House magazine.

After QE, Aidan went to Birmingham University, where he read English.

He happily recalls attending a QE Dinner Debate ten years after leaving School: “Six of us went as a gang and found former classmates surprised to find so many of us were still friends as adults – as we remain: the best of friends, a good gang.”

Aidan is modest about his career – “apologies to QE for squandering such good grounding and potential” – yet his newspaper has a circulation of close to 1.5 million and is also widely read online.  And he routinely writes front-page leads on the biggest news stories of the day, from the death of three-year-old Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, who drowned while trying to enter Europe with his family in 2015, to last year’s Brexit referendum.

“In attempts at boasting mode, I would point towards times as a foreign correspondent in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan; working undercover in crisis-ridden Zimbabwe at a time when foreign journalists were officially banned; and to working in earthquake-hit Nepal, famine-ridden Ethiopia and reporting child-soldier stories in Sierra Leone and Cambodia.”

His sports books have been for major publishers, such as Carlton Books and Dorling Kindersley.

Recruitment expert Santino Boffa is now the global chief head-hunter for a fast-expanding international technology company.

His role as Global Talent Acquisition Manager for Qubit is the latest post in what has already been a highly-varied career.

After reading Law at Sheffield, Santino (OE 1996–2003) first became a professional football coach. He later moved into recruitment, taking a number of posts before a secondment in 2014 saw him helping to launch a global banking programme – Santander’s My Rewards – to over 3 million account holders.

Santino began working for Qubit, a Software as a Service (SaaS) start-up company specialising in personalisation, in March 2016. Qubit, which has received more than $76m in venture capital funding, helps more than 300 of the world’s top consumer brands to understand and influence how people interact with them across multiple digital channels, including web, mobile and email. Customers include John Lewis, TOPSHOP and Hilton Hotels.

His London-based job involves recruiting engineers globally, with a specific focus on software engineers and product managers. He is also responsible for shaping and executing global recruitment strategies and building world-class teams.

Earlier this month, Santino visited the School to help out as part of a careers event. “It was great being back at QE. The School Hall seems a lot smaller these days – and I was really impressed with the new facilities,” he said.

“My memories of the School include early-morning games lessons in the old swimming pool in the middle of winter, with the roof leaking. The students today don’t know how good they have it!”

He said: “I like to spend my time outside work travelling to new countries and watching my beloved Arsenal home and away.”

Santino this month celebrates the first anniversary of his wedding to Carmela Vitale, who works in advertising.

While life at Queen Elizabeth’s School has continued calmly this term, the country at large has been beset by a string of terrible episodes, including terrorist outrages and the fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington. On a number of occasions, we have joined the rest of the nation in honouring the dead and remembering the injured and the bereaved through the observance of a minute’s silence. Such events inevitably leave their mark on young and old alike.

Against this backdrop, I am acutely conscious that young people today face many challenges to their mental and emotional wellbeing in a world that has changed considerably since their own parents were children. The curtailment of outdoor play and the prevalence of family breakdown have been cited by commentators as ‘dehumanising’ factors deleterious to a child’s ability to form loving relationships and to trust people. And while technology has undoubtedly brought benefits, an addiction to smartphones, to social media and to computer games is too often replacing the normal human interaction that previous generations took for granted, reducing young people’s capacity for empathy and leaving them socially isolated. Moreover, research is still uncovering the factors which account for the tendency of some older male adolescents to adopt unhelpful, and even risky, behaviours; the key is likely to lie in understanding how a combination of genes, childhood experience and the environment a boy had in early adolescence affect his behaviour at a time when the brain is undergoing physiological change.

Now, more than ever, it is important that teachers, parents and the boys themselves pay due regard to the mental and emotional health of our pupils. To this end, we already have pastoral strategies in place and are also currently developing a new mental wellbeing policy for the School. Pupils are encouraged to engage with political and social issues, as demonstrated by this term’s mock General Election and by tutor-time discussions that have focused on the recent tragedies. Form tutors have been working on developing in pupils the seven ‘learnable skills of resilience’. Alongside such collective approaches, more intensive support is available for individuals, whether to deal with an existing problem or to intervene pre-emptively at an early stage.

Interestingly, several of our alumni have touched on such themes recently. At our recent Junior Awards Ceremony, the guest of honour, Prashant Raval (OE 2003-2010), spoke about the lessons he had learned from both successes and failures. He underlined the importance of hard work and preparation and of savouring achievements when they come. But, recalling that he had been “quite the perfectionist” while a pupil himself, he had some further wise counsel for our young award-winners: “What I’ve realised, alas, is that in the real world, it is nigh-on impossible to achieve 100% in everything, all of the time, and you will make mistakes along the way. Don’t be afraid of these mistakes – instead, embrace them as opportunities to learn.” Prashant took a First in Economics at University College London and then worked initially as an analyst with UBS Investment Bank. After that, he became a Senior Commercial Manager for Aston Villa Football Club, before taking up his present senior post in Operations for Uber. “At the age of 24, it’s perhaps slightly unusual that I’m already in my third full-time job. But this professional diversity has enabled me to begin to truly understand what makes a job more fulfilling, rewarding and enjoyable than another – and that is the scope for learning,” he said.

Our guest speaker at the Thanksgiving Service on the morning of Founder’s Day, Ashley-James Turner (OE 2001–2008), rightly reminded us that the commitment, sacrifice and diligence of QE parents are core not only to the success of their own sons but of the School in toto. After welcoming many Old Elizabethans on Founder’s Day, I look forward to seeing even greater numbers during the Autumn Term at the OE Association dinner – where our speaker is Robert ‘Judge’ Rinder (1989–1994) – at the Careers Convention and at the Carol Service. It has also been great to connect with many old boys on LinkedIn recently: if you haven’t found me there yet, do please feel free to look me up – I will be happy to hear from you.

More than any other event in our calendar, Founder’s Day represents an opportunity for our whole School community – past, present and even future – to come together. It thus seemed entirely appropriate that this year’s event coincided with The Great Get Together, a weekend of community events around the country inspired by Brendan Cox, the husband of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was murdered last year by a political extremist.

In these troubled times, I have been heartened by the poetic endeavours of Old Elizabethan George ‘the Poet’ Mpanga (OE 2002–2009), who put his mastery of language to service in producing a poem to encourage people to report hate crime, which ends with the words “you can’t fight violence with silence”. The poem, which was commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to coincide with the anniversary of Jo Cox’s death, reminds us of the need to be vigilant against all forms of hatred. Like many of our old boys, by giving his time to causes greater than himself, George is fulfilling the tenet of the QE mission statement that Elizabethans should seek to “make a contribution to society rather than pursuing only personal gain”.

I wish all Old Elizabethans a peaceful and enjoyable summer.

Neil Enright

Akshay Ruparelia has launched his online estate agency and secured more than half-a-million pounds in investment – just a year after completing his A-levels at QE.

Having previously secured £100,000 as an initial investment, Akshay’s current fund-raising campaign for Doorsteps.co.uk hit its £400,000 target in less than half of its 30-day window, which runs until 27th July 2017.  “It’s great news – and I’m sure some in the QE alumni network may be interested in investing in the remaining few days, especially as our largest backer in this campaign is a vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch.” (Compliance rules prohibit Akshay from disclosing this investor’s identity at this stage.)

“My ambitions did depend upon raising the money, so it seems I will now be pursuing them!” says Akshay (OE 2009–2016).

His interest in starting his own business was already well established while he was at school.

“I had long had an ‘entrepreneurial streak’ about me (I hate using the phrase, though, as it is so abstract), whether I was selling sweets in school (sorry!), colognes, or portable chargers. I wasn’t hugely involved in clubs, but I did found the Young Entrepreneurship Club, which was an upper school competition for developing and nurturing new ideas.

“QE has helped me develop a sense of independence and resilience in a competitive atmosphere. This really gave me the mettle and the determination I needed, built over the years. I have also been plagued by a huge work ethic driving me to pursue the business further, in a gap year!”

Akshay spent the first year of his A-levels working on an app –housesmartapp.com/housesmartapp.co.uk. “The app really confirmed my passion – almost an obsession – for the property market, as I saw how entrenched the market was. It lacked disruption and was archaic in its ways, yet we had grown up seeing shopping, dating, reading, taxis and other markets being disrupted and sometimes overhauled completely.”

He was inspired by the record of online market leader Purplebricks, which in just three years had built a market share approaching that of Countrywide, the UK’s largest estate agent, which had been developed through half a century of acquisitions and brand-building.

“The market is ripe for disruption: it’s simply not every day that there is an opportunity to step into such a revolution!”

“I attempted to build the structure of the app with developers, funded initially by renowned internet entrepreneur Mark Kotecha, who has gone on to become a major supporter of Doorsteps.co.uk.” It was at this point that Akshay hit difficulties. “To cut a long story short, this app was far too revolutionary for the market.”

And so, during the second year of his A-levels, he changed tack. “Without compromising grades, I focused on developing a go-to-market strategy for the business – an online agency with a real branded feel, value proposition and great service. Something the market lacked, in my opinion.”

His A-level results last August presented him with a dilemma: “I secured a place to read Economics at University College London.” (Akshay wanted to stay in London, because he was a carer for both of his parents, who are deaf, and because his only other sibling was moving out to get married.) “But I had also secured a £100,000 angel investment to develop the business in the direction I wanted.” He opted to develop the business.

“After continuously tough work, we have rebranded to a warmer feel and the result is doorsteps.co.uk. Within six months of full incorporation, we have escalated to the point where we are the sixth-largest online agency in UK and 41st of over 12,000 general estate agents, based on size.”

Akshay has hired several customer service staff – a focus which is already bearing fruit. “We are top-rated on Trustpilot and word-of-mouth has allowed organic growth, with revenues growing tenfold in less than six months.”

The current fund-raising to enable further expansion and growth is being conducted through the Crowdcube crowd-funding platform. Further details are available here. Akshay can be contacted by email.

QE contemporaries Chris Shurety and Jerry Golland both received awards in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Chris (OE 1956–1963) received an MBE for services to Music, while Jerry, who was also at QE from 1956 to 1963, was awarded a British Empire Medal for services to Business and Charity.

Chris, who is Artistic Director of Contemporary Music for All (CoMA), has devoted a large part of his life to enabling as many people as possible to get involved in music-making. Having started to play instruments himself from around the age of 40, he founded the late-starter orchestral movement in 1983 by establishing the East London Late Starters Orchestra.

He set up CoMA in 1993 to enable musicians of all abilities to play an active role in contemporary music. Today it has a national network of instrumental and vocal ensembles, an expanding international programme and a unique music collection comprising hundreds of works of new music.

CoMA Chair Tom Service, a leading BBC Radio 3 presenter who also writes about music for The Guardian, said: “No single figure in contemporary musical life is responsible for commissioning as much and inspiring as much new music and music-making as Chris Shurety. But what’s most important is how he has realised his radical vision of a fully open, fully participative musical culture – and how an idea that started with CoMA is now radiating across the whole of musical culture, from schools to professional ensembles. He is one of the essential, inspirational presences in contemporary music, and the most deserving of this recognition!”

Richard ‘Jerry’ Golland, a solicitor who lives in Welwyn Hatfield, helped hundreds of young people during more than a decade with The Prince’s Trust. He continues to work with The Sylvia Adams Charitable Trust, a charity formed with the £5.2m assets of an antique dealer which helps vulnerable children and families affected by illness in the UK and supports development projects in Africa.

Now retired, he spent more than 40 years as a lawyer with a number of firms, having benefited from a QE connection for the vital first step in that successful career. He was also the Hertfordshire Chairman – and, later, East of England Regional Chairman – for the Institute of Directors.

On the announcement of the Birthday Honours last month, Jerry told the Welwyn Hatfield Times: “I am surprised, but tickled pink. It is nice to know that people notice, especially as it is local people who have nominated me.”

“It is a great honour to be nominated for this award,” said Chris. “It really serves as recognition for all those many musicians, both amateur and professional, who have contributed so much of the past 25 years to making CoMA not only a reality, but also such an extraordinarily exciting musical journey.  We have taken our first steps. There is much more to come I am sure.”

Last year, he established the Festival of Contemporary Music for All, a collaboration between CoMA, leading professional ensembles, national music organisations, amateur and youth groups. Taking place in six regions across the UK, this was widely adjudged to have been an enormous success and the Festival is now a biennial event. In 2018 there will be 20 locations, including five across Europe. “The Festival is the biggest thing I am working on now,” he says.

As a teenager, he loved jazz and was a regular at Barnet jazz club, but he traces his passion for classical music squarely back to Queen Elizabeth’s School, beginning with the time when his Geography teacher, R M ‘Sam’ Cocks, a member of the Royal Philharmonic Choir, offered him a free ticket to a Prom featuring Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. He adds: “There was no teaching of musical instruments at the School, but my interest was reinforced through a great collection of LPs, probably owned by Music teacher Charles ‘Dick’ Whittington. He also recalls Biology teacher Eric Crofts practising his bassoon while the boys dissected worms and frogs – “It seemed an entirely natural thing to be doing.”

His passion for Music was clearly contagious: “A small group of us used to set off after school every Thursday for what was then the Radio 3 Thursday Invitation concerts.  Lots of contemporary music there!”

Like many OEs, he speaks affectionately of Head of Art Hew Purchas, who died last year. “I was the only sailor in School, but amazingly the School had a Cadet dinghy at Aldeburgh reservoir, so instead of the usual sports, I used to cycle there on a Wednesday afternoon to be met by [Hew Purchas], who used the occasions to paint. He was lovely, other-worldly. He was influential in making me into a practicing artist [see photo]…and today I have a boat moored on the river Orwell.”

Other activities Chris enjoyed at QE included:

• Geology
• Walking, especially in the mountains. “I started a Mountaineering Club whilst at school but guess it has ceased to be in this world of litigation…”
• Books and projects. “I used to organise the school library’s displays.”

“I’ve always been somewhat extra-curricular,” he says. He adds that he was far from a model pupil: “I rebelled and got regularly punished for it. I was told by my English teacher (Colin Carter) once that I had received more beatings than any other pupil in the School’s history – although presumably he meant its recent history; surely not since 1573! As I left, I know the School was putting those days behind it, with the appointment of the new headmaster, Timothy Edwards, in 1961.”

Leaving School with Biology, Chemistry and Geography A-levels, he went to Southampton University – chosen for the sailing – initially to study Geology, but he later switched to Botany. “I followed this with research into ryegrass ecotypes at Aberystwyth and into the physiology of serum proteins following trauma, at Odstock Hospital, Salisbury.

“Influenced by the politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I became a community development worker in Kirkby, Liverpool, then Tower Hamlets and later in Greenwich, where eventually, in 1989, I led on environmental issues on behalf of the Council.”

By this time, however, his decision to take up learning to play the violin, viola and cello in the early 1980s was becoming increasingly significant in his life. Having already founded the East London Late Starters Orchestra in 1983, in 1993 he left Greenwich Council to become Director of CoMA.

Chris has four children in two families – aged 48, 46, 19 and 16 – as well as a number of grandchildren.

“I was born in Welwyn Garden City on 22nd April 1945. My father, Richard John Golland was an old boy at QE before the war [OE 1928–1935]. He was a civil engineer. Dad was working in Tanganyika in 1949 building the deep-water port at Mtwara for the infamous Ground Nut Scheme [a failed attempt by the British government to cultivate peanuts on areas of land in this country, which is now Tanzania]. My mother took me and my sister Mary (who went to the Girls’ School) in 1949 by seaplane to Tanganyika. We stayed there until 1953, when it was decided we should come home as my Swahili was better than my English, and I could not read or write, but could dismantle and clean a Lea Enfield 303 rifle and skin a leopard! I was sent to Franklin House, a prep school in Palmers Green where they beat the Swahili out of me and somehow got me through the eleven plus.  EHJ [Ernest Harold Jenkins, Headmaster 1930–1961] interviewed me and I only got in to QE as Dad was an OE.

“I was known as Jerry at school – and often as Golly. My name can doubtless still be found on some silverware at QE: I seem to remember the 220 yards, 440 yards and the long jump cup. I struggled academically as the prep school had not taught me how to learn and no-one realised this when I was at QE. In the end, I ended up with one A-level and quite a few O-levels.

“Fred Jefferies was then a governor and a solicitor practicing in North Finchley. He wanted a couple of articled clerks, so Nigel Emery from my year and I embarked on becoming solicitors through five years of articles. Nigel managed to pass all of his exams, but I took until 1971 to get through mine. Fred made me a partner and I stayed with Merton Jones Lewsey & Jefferies until 1989, when I was enticed away to Join Taylor Walker in St Albans. In 1995 I was headhunted into Matthew Arnold & Baldwin, where I remained until I retired in 2011. Fred was a very good commercial solicitor, and took me under his wing. I found I had a talent for merger & acquisition work, with a particular interest in corporate governance. That interest eventually lead me into advising charities, which in those days were very badly run and needed a good dose of commercial common sense.

“In 1994, Alan ‘Happy’ Morris, an accountant and an OE, asked me to help him with a client called Sylvia Adams. She had fallen over and broken her hip. She had a fantastic collection of antiques, having been a dealer whose best client was Queen Mary! She wanted to set up a charity, and in 1995 Alan and I formed The Sylvia Adams Charitable Trust with £5.2 million pounds generated from the sale of the collection. At that time the Trust supported disabled people, young people, and those in poverty, both within the UK and abroad in third-world countries. Alan was chairman of trustees and I was the other trustee. Alan resigned as trustee in 2000 as he was unwell; I became chairman and we took in two other trustees, one of whom was a certain Eamonn Harris [Headmaster 1984–1999]. SACT continues to this day, although our work is now a little different.” [The charity currently focuses on helping organisations involved in:  early years’ work with some of the country’s most disadvantaged children; supporting and informing families and communities affected by genetic conditions, and development work in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.]

“Going back to 1995, I was approached by the manager of the Prince’s Youth Business Trust to join their board in Hertfordshire to assess businesses that had applied for support and to make loans to them. I volunteered in this way until 2000 when the then-chairman stood down. I was asked to apply for the role, was appointed, and then told a week later that The Prince of Wales had decided to combine the three trusts he had set up over the years. The work of one of the Trusts was contracted out to the YMCA in Watford by head office, and the other two had their own boards and volunteers. It took a bit of doing, but by the end of 2000, we had one Hertfordshire Board and all went well. As Hertfordshire Chairman, I also sat on the Regional Committee. By 2006 we had undergone another set of changes, including merging with the Bedfordshire Board, and when yet more change was proposed which would mean the end of using volunteers except for fundraising, I decided enough was enough! In my time as chairman we helped over 1,300 young people in Hertfordshire, something I will always be proud of.

“I had been a member of the Institute of Directors since 1990.  I used the Hertfordshire Branch as a good networking opportunity. In 2001, I was asked to join the Hertfordshire Committee, and in 2002, when the then-chairman left the role suddenly, I found myself being put forward as Hertfordshire Chairman. I accepted and after four years was appointed Regional Chairman for the East of England. That role was for three years, and I stepped down in 2009.

“My role at The Sylvia Adams Charitable Trust continues, but I am no longer involved in the other roles. I am a member of Brookmans Park Golf Club and this year am Captain of the Muntjacs, our senior section. Richard Newton and I started in 1C in September 1956, and when we played Porters Park Golf Club this year, Richard was their Captain. These OEs get everywhere! I was a member of the OE rugby club, the athletics team and the cricket club. My other passion is our narrow boat, Albert Henry, that we keep on the Grand Union Canal near Ivinghoe. Life at four miles an hour is a great stress-reliever.

“Trina and I were married in 1970 and are still together. Mum and Dad died in 2006 and 2003 respectively. We have two daughters. Sarah is married and lives in Cambridge. She and Ed have two daughters, Emily, who is eight, and Martha, five. Laura is not married, but has a partner, Al, and they have been together for 11 years. They have two daughters, Niamh, four, and Grace, one. They live in Wellington, New Zealand, which means a long trip every year, and lots of Skyping!”

Dr Yusuf Sherwani has put his medical training on hold to develop a hi-tech way of helping people stop smoking.

Yusuf (OE 2003–2010) combined his love of computing with his medical expertise to produce Quit Genius, an app which aims to make therapy for people trying to give up tobacco more cost-effective and scalable.

“Quit Genius became a passion during medical school after I saw how difficult it was for clinicians to prescribe effective behavioural therapy that could help people change their habits to help prevent disease.” In an interview with the American technology magazine, Wired, he explained that the problem with the face-to-face support often used to help patients stop smoking is that it is simply not financially sustainable. “We’re replacing the patient/therapist relationship with the patient and an app.”

Quit Genius is among a number of start-ups seeking to demonstrate that “supportive… treatment can be as effective as reaching for your phone”, the article explained.

The app has been developed by Yusuf’s company, Digital Therapeutics, of which he is CEO. It is being helped by a partnership, Velocity Health, set up by two large players in the fields of technology and healthcare, namely Wayra UK (which is, in turn, part of Telefónica) and Merck Sharp & Dohme UK (MSD). Velocity Health is an ‘accelerator’ for innovative healthcare solutions. In addition to the backing from Velocity Health, Quit Genius has also attracted support from angel investors.

Imran Hamid, chief commercial discovery for MSD, told Wired: “We’re witnessing the birth of digital therapeutics as a class of medicine in its own right.”

Yusuf has just graduated as a doctor from Imperial College School of Medicine, but has opted to pause his clinical training to focus on Quit Genius.

“I probably discovered my entrepreneurial streak during my time at QE,” he recalls. I started my first online start-up whilst in Year 9, creating a network of online bulletin boards which quickly amassed millions of monthly visitors, before selling the business in Year 11.”

In the Sixth Form, Yusuf asked to study Computing, which the School had not previously offered as an A-level. “I’ll always admire the fact that QE agreed to create a class for just three of us who wanted to study the subject!

“During that time, I also founded a consumer electronics e-commerce platform which relied on importing high-end audio equipment from China with a friend and contemporary at QE, Zainul Dhalla, which I carried on working on during my gap year. Zainul subsequently studied Law at Cambridge and is now a Senior Product Manager at a high-growth tech startup in London.

“The project was actually very successful for a number of years, helping us pay our way through university. However, eventually, we found it too gruelling an experience to juggle Medicine and Law respectively with a growing business and took the joint decision to wind it down. Several other start-ups have subsequently copied the same model and have been successfully operating for a number of years.”

Reflecting on his life so far, Yusuf adds this: “I’ll simply say that there’s light at the end of the tunnel for those who don’t make prefect!”

Mike Ajayi’s signing and promotion of platinum-selling indie rock band alt-J was the key which unlocked a highly successful career in the music industry.

Mike (OE 1998–2005) now runs his own label imprint, AMF (All My Friends) Records, which is part of the global Universal Music Group led by Mike’s fellow OE, Sir Lucian Grainge (1971–1978).

The big break for Mike came in 2011 when he firstly joined independent label Infectious Music to work under the pupillage of industry legend Korda Marshall and signed alt-J, then a four-piece band from Leeds University.

Yet when he reflects on his life at QE, he says that it was rugby, not music, that was his main passion in terms of extra-curricular School activities. “I was never the most gifted musically at school as I’d usually be found on the rugby pitch when I had a spare moment.” He played the game competitively throughout the age groups and was in the First XV from Year 11, as well as representing the School at county level and playing for Saracens.

“Rugby was definitely a calming influence for me and helped me get rid of some of that surplus energy that would sometimes spill in to the classroom. I wouldn’t say I was by any means the naughtiest, but I definitely knew how to push my luck at times. I give a lot of credit to former master Mr [Tim] Bennett, who was a great mentor and guide for myself and a lot of the boys during my time at QE. He was both my head of year and rugby coach, and he definitely instilled the belief in me that anything was possible.

“I think, looking back, that’s probably what sticks with me most about my time at QE – it wasn’t just what we learnt in the classroom, but also the way the School and teachers enabled us to be confident, free-thinking, independent young men. Something I feel has served me well through to today.

Although he didn’t excel at performing music at School, he did, however, find time to listen to it. “My love for music came mainly from School friends growing up; we’d listen to British bands such as Blur, Arctic Monkeys, The Streets and Bloc Party. At that time, TV channels like MTV Base and Channel U were quite prominent, so we listened to a lot US hip hop and R&B. Rappers and musicians like Eminem, Dr Dre, Missy Elliot, Talib Kweli or Maxwell definitely sound-tracked our youth, especially on those Saturday away games.”

It was when he went to the University of East Anglia that he began to find his own taste in music, discovering much more eclectic genres and going along to many live shows. “I eventually got in to writing reviews for a then up-and-coming music blog, Subba-Cultcha, which would involve often jumping on the National Express bus to review shows in London.”

In addition to this nascent career as a music journalist, Mike also had the opportunity to try his hand at live promotions: with the help of friends, he put on a local student club night in Norwich called Connected. “It was predominantly an old-school Garage and R&B night, and despite having a very limited budget, we were able to attract a host of UK urban acts, such as Wiley, Kano and Lethal B to name but a few. Although, it was a small venue, I found it great for discovering new urban music and meeting people in the industry. It also helped put a few extra pennies in my pocket whilst I navigated my way through university.”

It was around this time that Mike started to take the idea of working in music seriously: “I didn’t know where I saw myself fitting, but I just knew I wanted to be part of it.”

His first definite steps into a music industry career came in around 2009, when he took up an internship at Sony Music Entertainment. “I would be lying if there wasn’t a part of me that thought getting into the industry would instantly mean wild parties, and although that was the case on the odd occasion, it was actually probably the hardest period for me. I initially started out in their catalogue and compilations division in a role that involved me compiling all the required artist and legal information for music compilations.

“I did this for about two months before moving over to the newly reformed Jive records UK, home to English hip-hop artist Chipmunk and L.A. band Funeral Party. I guess that’s where I made my first transitions to becoming an A&R. [Artists and repertoire (A&R) is the division of a record responsible for talent-scouting and the artistic development of recording artists and songwriters.] At the time, my primary role was just being out and about scouting emerging talent and reporting back in to my boss. In order to do this, however, I had to take up various jobs ranging from working as a clerk in an eye hospital to weekend bar work, as the label only covered my expenses. My evenings would be spent travelling up and down the UK, sometimes attending three shows in a single night – and I’d still be expected to be in the office for 9:30am the next day. Although it was tiring and often quite lonely, I loved it!”

All those unpaid hours did eventually bring their reward, as Mike’s career began to take off rapidly when he joined Infectious and started working with Korda Marshall. “During my time there, I was really able to drill down on what is was to be an A&R. Beyond the talent-scouting element, I learnt about the processes that went in to making a record, as well the business side of the industry and actually signing talent. I had a good level of success, signing bands such as Superfood and Drenge, whilst also getting to work quite closely with Korda on ‘a&r-ing’ albums for The Temper Trap, These New Puritans, The Acid and Local Natives.

“Undoubtedly, my biggest achievement and involvement as an A&R came about when I signed alt-J in November 2011. We would go on to release their debut album An Awesome Wave, which went platinum in the UK (300,000+ album sales) and sold over 1 million copies worldwide. In addition to the sales, the album won the prestigious 2012 British Barclaycard Mercury Prize, and in 2013 it was named Album of the Year at the Ivor Novello Awards. The band’s sophomore album, This Is All Yours, led to continued success, reaching number 1 in the UK charts and cementing them as one of the biggest British bands, who sold out multiple O2 Arena shows and Madison Square Garden.”

Success breeds success, and, in 2015, Mike’s glittering period with Infectious and alt-J, brought him the opportunity, along with a fellow Infectious colleague, to start his own label imprint under Virgin EMI (part of Universal). Virgin EMI is home to artists including Emelie Sande, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Kanye West, James Bay and Bastille.

“Through this deal, my label, AMF Records, is tasked with the role of focusing on the long-term development of emerging British artists. One of the first signings was the BBC Sound of 2016 longlisted and critically acclaimed artist, Loyle Carner, whose debut, Yesterday’s Gone, has been lauded as one of 2017’s breakthrough albums in the UK and abroad.” Now in its third year, the label boasts a host of new acts, such as Connie Constance, Marika Hackman and Jelani Blackman, all set for releases this year.

Mike, who is London-based, adds: “The plan going forward is to further cement AMF Records as a home for nurturing and developing acts, which could hopefully lead to me following in the footsteps of Lucian Grainge.

“I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to pursue a career in music and in no way has it perturbed my love for it, either. On a personal level, my focus has shifted to ‘giving back’ as I’ve tried to take a more active role in the industry.”

He plans to become involved in supporting events with current pupils at QE. And in the autumn, he will be working with the well-known academy, ELAM (East London Arts & Music), as part of its mentorship programme for aged 16 to 19.

“As well as that, I’ve also spoken on panels in the UK and US – and soon Australia, too – in the hope that I can provide greater insight into how younger generations can navigate their way through non-typical career paths.”