Ollie Humphries will bring senior level experience from the retail and hospitality sector to support the nursery group’s ambitious plans to almost double in size this summer.
Family First, which now has 17 settings, was established two years ago by ex-Asquith Nurseries CEO Andy Morris who is chairman of the group. It plans to grow to 30 settings by the end of August.
Mr Morris said, ‘We are thrilled to welcome Ollie to our team, with his experience of working in large organisations going through transformation and his focus on attracting the most talented staff to work for us. We chose him because he’s a great people person.
‘We’ve grown to 17 nurseries since acquiring our first nursery group in June 2019, now offering more than 1,000 childcare places within a 35-mile radius of London. We’re on target to reach 30 nurseries by the end of August. It was therefore crucial that we found the right person to maintain our fantastic momentum.’
Mr Humphries was previously managing director of restaurant chain Frankie and Benny’s, and formerly a divisional director at bookmaker William Hill with accountability for the people and profit and loss of 1250 branches. He has also been a franchise operations leader for over 600 KFC restaurants.
He said, ‘I’m so excited to be joining an organisation which shares my own ethos for attracting the best staff, with a vision to move newly acquired nurseries from Good to Outstanding and provide exceptional quality childcare.’
Portland Nurseries Group
Huddersfield-based nursery group, Portland Nurseries, which has four settings has named a new four-person senior management team in a bid to enhance its ‘outstanding’ levels of care for children.
New recruits Gail Howarth and Amanda Boocock have joined nursery managers Julie Lister and Samantha Warburton who have both worked for the group for more than 25 years.
Portland Nurseries' new management team, from left to right: Samantha Warburton, Amanda Boocock, Gail Howarth, Julie Lister
Ms Howarth has joined from Just Childcare, which has more than 60 settings. She has experience in compliance and understanding the standards required by Ofsted to consistently achieve Outstanding ratings. While Ms Boocock is moving from Little Rascals in York as early years development manager and senior mentor.
The group was founded in 1991 by Rosemary Murphy who used her first-hand knowledge of the sector to establish the National Day Nurseries Association. Portland Nurseries is now run by her children, joint managing directors Anastasia and Michael Murphy.
Anastasia Murphy said, ‘They bring a new set of skills and a perspective from outside Portland Nurseries that will have benefits across the board, from process efficiencies to creative play. We’re creating a high-performing team but this is about kids, not KPIs.
‘We are driven to create the best learning and play environments and are committed to giving children the very best start in life. From our outdoor play areas and forest school ethos, our healthy menus and STEM provision, to providing on-call wellbeing professionals for staff and managers, we try to cultivate a culture that brings out the best in people, whatever their age.’
