Edge interview
An education in leadership Michelle Dowse is the winner of the Leadership Excellence Award for Individuals 2025. Her career has taken her from consumer marketing to delivering better educational outcomes as the head of Heart of Worcestershire College. It’s not a conventional route to educational leadership, and it has involved being thrown in at the deep end on more than one occasion, but she says the lessons learned have been transformational Writing Martin Bewick
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ig. That’s how Michelle Dowse describes her role as principal and CEO of Heart of Worcestershire (HoW) College. Not difficult or complex or stressful, though it must be all of those things at times. No, just ‘big’. The description is apt. HoW College has around 6,000 students, ranging in age from 16 to well into their 80s – a truly diverse learning community that includes school leavers, adult learners, highereducation students and apprentices. The college employs more than 550 staff, with around 425 full-time equivalents, working across campuses in Redditch, Bromsgrove and central Worcester, as well as a construction centre in Malvern. “We support learners from all walks of life,” Dowse explains. “That could be high-achieving students aiming to go higher, and others who need encouragement to rediscover their love of learning and realise their potential. “We’re a vocational and technical college, focused on shaping the nurses, chefs, engineers and digital specialists of tomorrow, and we’re especially strong in health and social care, to meet local and national NHS needs.”
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Operating across the county brings opportunities and challenges, especially when it comes to allocating time and resources, but Dowse is also thinking bigger – at national levels of impact. “We’re deeply rooted in our community,” she says, “but we also cover a lot of the same ground as the UK government’s national missions. For example, I’m involved in championing its Safer Streets mission. We get involved politically to make sure that the voice of further education is heard and that people are aware of the impact that our learners have in the community after they leave us.” Dowse truly sees the bigger picture. Unexpected career path After sitting her O levels (“I’m old enough to call them that!”), Dowse didn’t imagine education would be her future. “I didn’t do brilliantly in my exams,” she says, “but post-16 education changed everything. I left a school where the teaching didn’t suit me and joined a sixth form that reignited my belief in education. That experience opened the door to university. It’s why I feel such a personal connection to further education today – I know first hand how transformative it can be.” However, rather than choosing education as a career after university, Dowse spent the best part of two decades working in the private sector for organisations including Philips and Unilever, where she discovered a love for marketing. At 29, she became a company director. “It was a huge milestone that shaped my leadership journey. I often felt out of my depth, but that experience taught me how to learn fast, adapt quickly and lead with confidence,” she says. “I ran my own marketing consultancy while raising my children, which offered flexibility, but not fulfilment. I hit what I call my midlife career crisis. I realised I wanted to do something that felt purposeful and aligned with my values – something that genuinely mattered.” It was that ‘crisis’ that brought Dowse back to education. “I knew this was the world