Guy Collins-Down | Chief Operating Officer
Alleyn's School

Guy Collins-Down is Chief Operating Officer of Alleyn’s School, overseeing the running of the school on a day to day basis from IT strategy, catering and security through to sustainability, classroom design and international partnerships. Guy has worked in educational development and management for over 20 years. Graduating in Business Administration from Cardiff University, Guy spent his university career travelling the globe for the leadership development charity AIESEC. In his various roles, culminating in National Vice President, Guy ran conferences, trained young leaders in strategic planning and presentation skills, worked with FTSE 100 firms on graduate recruitment and developing new programmes to cultivate improvements in cultural understanding, something still sorely needed in the world today. Guy was bought up in a family of teachers, and it was at AIESEC that Guy found his calling in education. After
graduating, Guy joined the firm Bryanston Square Consulting as an educational consultant, helping local authorities, architects and construction firms on the design and transformation of learning environments.
Guy subsequently joined the world-famous Harrow School as Chief Commercial Officer where he ran an international summer school alongside a thriving sports club, events business and location shoots. A role born out of generating commercial revenue, Guy was known for challenging the status quo including creating the world’s first edition version of monopoly based on a school; masterminding Harrow’s entry into the prestigious Unique Venues of London and brokering new commercial partnerships in the UK and across the globe. Guy continued his career in school management as Director of Finance and Operations at South Hampstead High School (a 900 place 4-18 girls day school) and as Bursar at Finton House School (350 place 4-11 co-educational day school) before joining Alleyn’s in 2022.
Over the course of his career, Guy has been involved in the design of over £1bn of new school buildings. With a reputation for rethinking and deconstructing traditional thinking in order to make schools fit for the future, he has designed conference halls, developed masterplans, and overhauled operational processes. He played a pivotal role in the formation
of the School’s Enterprise Association (now over 100 UK independent schools), for which he still chairs their national conference each year. Guy is particularly committed to schools
serving the whole community, and throughout his career he has championed designing schools for alternate uses, a passion he continues through his work at Alleyn’s today. Alongside his work, he has written for several educational journals and was a co-author of the book Imagine: Learning Spaces by Bryanston Square Consulting. Guy is a regular
speaker at educational conferences across the world on the transformation of educational environments. Passionate and accomplished, Guy specialises in talking about educational design and the powerful impact of classroom environments on pupil learning and well-being; weaving sustainability through strategic decision making; the transformation of education through information technology; and integrating flexibility into design for alternative uses.