Get to know us

Meet the Escentral team

Kind, empathetic, creative, and obsessed with helping you solve your timetabling and space management conundrums. We’re an eclectic mix of minds with a ton of experience, and we’re lucky to be able to say our team are some of the smartest, skilled and helpful people we’ve ever met.
Ben Moreland, Director
Ben's passion for helping people reach their full potential – both our clients and the Escentral team – is at the core of his work. He genuinely wants to empower people to be the best they can be. He’s spent 14 years in timetabling and space management, gathering a wealth of knowledge and experience, which he combines with a calm and positive approach to create truly transformational support for our clients.

The Consultancy Team

A dedicated team of timetabling and space management legends, with a ton of experience working as both consultants and within HE institutions.

Samantha Kouchakji-Allen, Timetabling Consultant

Sam has over a decade of experience in higher education timetabling, with half that decade spent managing a timetabling team. She consults on a wide range of timetabling and space planning projects, with a keen focus on developing strong stakeholder relationships in order to promote best practice and positive change within the timetabling environment. She enjoys problem solving and working collaboratively to create robust timetabling processes.

Amy Wareing,
Timetabling Consultant

Amy has over 15 years' experience in higher education timetabling and exam scheduling and has led multiple change projects at Escentral. She enjoys creating straightforward solutions to complex problems. Amy is keen to share her knowledge and upskill timetabling teams so they are able to manage complex scheduling and problem solving

Dave Beavis, Head of Space Management

With 16 years of strategic space management experience, Dave is able to identify, enhance and communicate complex space data confidently to support institutions make sound data-driven decisions. A keen problem-solver, seeking out the low-cost, high-impact solutions. Founder of HESMG (Higher Education Space Management Group) and previous chair of the AUDE SM group, Dave enjoys collaborating and creating innovative solutions to strategic space challenges facing HE, leading on the creation of various tools that are now routinely used by numerous institutions.

The Survey Team

Our survey team are our eyes in the sky and our boots on the ground. Experienced, diligent and discrete, they make sure every survey runs like clockwork.

Jody Ballard, Survey Manager

Before joining Escentral, Jody spent 10 years as a project manager, overseeing the global development of a major retailer. He project manages all the moving parts of our surveys, from route planning and recruitment of survey assistants to being onsite as your lead contact throughout survey weeks.

David Kirkland, Brandon Cartwright & Leonard Basoo, Survey Supervisors

David and Brandon are Jody’s right hand people, helping to train survey assistants, set up surveys onsite, and make sure everything goes to plan during each survey

Survey assistants

Our survey teams do the walking, counting and data collection. Over the course of a year we have over 100 survey assistants, and every single one is thoroughly trained and carefully briefed so that your survey data is recorded with the utmost accuracy and care.

The Data Team

The backbone of many of our consultancy and survey projects, our data superstars are expert data crunchers, ruthlessly hunting down themes and patterns and weeding out any anomalies. Your data couldn’t be in safer hands.

Alex Savarani
Lead Data Scientist

With a background in analytical environments as an investment analyst and a police detective, Alex has experience identifying patterns and spotting anomalies. He is passionate about the insights data can provide. Alex is using this passion, alongside Ben and Frazer, to improve and evolve the consultancy we provide. 
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Frazer Birch
Data Analyst

Frazer comes from a background of mathematical sciences, with experience of data analytics from a mathematical and finance perspective. Pursuing his interest in data to develop his skill set, Frazer provides thorough and detailed consultancy analyses in timetabling and space management projects.

Dan Stollenwerk
Business Intelligence Developer

Dan has studied analytical methods and tools through projects on diverse subject matters. With experience in data quality control, he has an eye for high-quality data and a passion for leveraging this to learn about the world. Dan works with the analytics team to draw actionable insights that help institutions optimise the allocation of their resources.

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Neha Ingavale
Graduate Data Engineer

Neha has a solid foundation in data engineering, developed through hands-on experience with cloud technologies and data workflows. She specializes in building and maintaining data pipelines, ensuring efficient data processing and integration. Neha collaborates with the data team at Escentral to manage cloud data, focusing on streamlining processes and delivering reliable data-driven solutions.
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The Learning and Development Team

To say we are passionate about creating epic training experiences would be an understatement. We work with both our consultants and facilitators to research, develop and run all of our courses and events, and look after our amazing community in the Timetabling Academy. 

Katie Dennison, Learning and Development Coordinator

After seven years in marketing, Katie brings a wealth of communication, organisation, and event management skills to the team. She supports our Learning and Development Manager in designing course content, moderating training sessions, looking after members in the Timetabling Academy, and keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes.

The Facilitator Team

Some of the brightest minds in their respective fields, our facilitators are strategic, smart and highly experienced. They’re also brilliant learning facilitators – patient, generous and on hand to make sure you get the best out of your learning. 

Svetlana Khalif

Timetabling Facilitator
Following her 28 years of timetabling and education management experience, Svetlana has a keen interest in creative solutions for complex problems. Acting as a link between the academic community, facilities management and other parts of the university administration, Svetlana is incredible at breaking down stereotypes and silos, and helping people to build positive and respectful working relationships at all levels in an organisation.

Poliana Tavares

Timetabling Facilitator
Poliana has been timetabling for 16 years and has a ton of experience in both training and leading timetabling teams. She is brilliant with handling the complicated world of curriculums. Universities and our learners love Poliana’s ability to explain the impact of different curriculum structures and translate even the trickiest curriculums so that they work with the timetable.

Kirsteen Williams

Space Management Facilitator
With 28 years of experience in the field, 25 of those spent leading a team, Kirsteen is an experienced Timetabler and Space Manager. She is used to working with small space footprints, balancing good utilisation, positive student experience, strategic institutional growth, and happy stakeholders. Kirsteen has successfully led multiple initiatives to centralise timetabling and space ownership. Her expertise also includes space modelling and forecasting to support curriculum development and estates planning. A natural problem solver, she understands the importance of high-quality data in driving informed decisions and sustainable solutions.

Craig Appleton

SPACE MANAGEMENT FACILITATOR
Craig is a senior strategic space planning and development professional. He has worked for over 30 years in the UK, USA and Australia to help strategically plan and manage space within educational and commercial environments. He currently works as Space Planning and Development Manager at Monash University.

Ryan Casey Clark

Timetabling Consultant
Ryan has worked in the education sector for just over 15 years, 10 of which in timetabling roles. Ryan enjoys the problem-solving aspect of timetabling as well as working closely with key stakeholders to improve and support the learning and teaching function in Schools.

Claire Davies

Timetabling Consultant
Claire has worked in timetabling for 3 years, specialising in law and business school timetabling. Before this she worked in operational and team management roles for 10 years for legal services, charity and marketing organisations. 

Katharine Hughes

Timetabling Consultant

Katharine has worked with timetablers for over 20 years in the Asia-Pacific, the UK and Europe. She has been involved in over 40 implementations of timetabling software solutions as a business consultant and trainer. Software is only part of the solution: Katharine believes in developing sound policy and communication strategies, working on continuous process improvement and leveraging the value of timetabling data.


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