John West-Burnham works as an independent teacher, writer and consultant in leadership development. John worked in schools, further and adult education for fifteen years before moving into higher education. He has held posts in six universities.

He is author of Managing Quality in Schools; Rethinking Educational Leadership; co-author of Understanding Leadership, Leadership Dialogues, Leading and Managing Schools; Education for Social Justice; Systems Leadership; Spiritual and moral development in schools; Schools and Communities; Personalizing Learning: Making Every Child Matter, Effective Learning in Schools, Leadership and Professional Development in Schools and co-editor of Performance Management in Schools, Educational Leadership and the Community, The Handbook of Educational Leadership and Management and 12 other books and over 30 articles and chapters.

John has worked in Australia, Belgium, Cyprus, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, the Republic of Ireland, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE and the USA. He was a coordinator of the European School Leadership Project.

His current consultancy and research interests include the learning centred school, ‘Closing the gap’- moving from good to outstanding; leading teaching and learning; transformational leadership, leadership learning and development; collaborative leadership and educational leadership in the community.

John is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts., Leadership Development Adviser, National School for Educational Leadership, Slovenia, Leadership consultant to Turning Learning in Amsterdam, Consultant to the Leadership Development Schools project, Ministry of Education, Republic of Ireland, Chair of the trustees of the Southern Educational Leadership Trust,Consultant, Innovative Schools Project, Microsoft, Adviser, BI Norwegian Business School, John is a director of three academy trusts and chair of the trustees of two educational charities. His most recent publication is 'Flipping Schools: Why it's time to turn your school and community inside out' (Malcolm Groves (Author), John West-Burnham (Author))