Amanda

Just to add to the BBC Chair runners and riders, Mark Kleinman at Sky, who seems to have decent tabs on the story, says that outgoing Ofsted boss Amanda Spielman is in the frame. 

Amanda, 62, (St Pauls Girls' and BA Maths & Law at Clare College Cambridge) on her cv: "I went on from Cambridge to become a chartered accountant, then went into mergers and acquisitions, then strategy consulting, then private equity. The combination of maths and law was a powerful one and served me well. Slowly my intellectual curiosity resurfaced and at the end of my thirties, I scratched the itch by studying for a masters in comparative education at the UCL Institute of Education. This was tremendously satisfying and propelled me into a career in education, culminating in my current role as His Majesty’s Chief Inspector at Ofsted."

In 2019, she captained the Clare alumni team on University Challenge; they scored just 55, beaten by Leeds with 205. She's previously expressed a love of knitting. She likes giving advice on books to read.