Clarissa is a sought-after speaker on leadership, women’s empowerment and education in the widest sense.

Clarissa’s career in education has spanned the UK maintained and independent sectors as well as international schools around the world. Her non-executive career is equally wide-ranging: she served on the Board of the Royal Ballet School for eleven years, and is currently a Fellow of Winchester College, a Trustee of the African Gifted Foundation and a Trustee of the British Museum where she also chairs the British Museum Friends Advisory Council.

Latterly, her special commitment to the education of girls has led her to focus on the future of women in society and in the workplace: what needs to change to enable women to make their full contribution to the modern world.

In The Making of Her: Why School Matters (HarperCollins, 2019) Clarissa uses the lens of her own education and career to take the reader through the arc of the school year, exploring questions of culture, community and the role of the bricks-and mortar school in a digital society. She reveals too the challenges of leading a high performing, high profile institution in a major capital city. According to one renowned school leader “ the book ought to be compulsory reading for all aspiring heads”.