Babington board announce David Marsh as new CEO

Award winning training provider Babington has today announced the appointment of David Marsh as its new CEO, taking over from Carole Carson, who steps down from the role after eight years with the company. 

David joins Babington from Capita Plc, where, as Managing Director of the Knowledgepool training division, he successfully brought together 5 separate business areas including managed learning, training delivery and the apprenticeship and pre-employment businesses, under the single banner of Knowledgepool. 

Prior to Knowledgepool, David fulfilled a number of roles, including Head of Academies at Centrica and Business and Account Development Director at Babcock International. He is also Chair of the ESFA Provider Readiness Group, which supports the ESFA in developing funding rules and ways of supporting current and new providers, to ensure the new funding reforms are a success. 

Carole Carson, CEO of Babington for the last eight years, has seen the business transform. With her vision, focus, hard work and determination, Babington has grown from a £2M business to more than £23M, with a high performing team capable of delivering the strategic objectives set and ensuring that Babington’s position as innovators in their market is maintained. 

Carole stated “I am proud of my achievements and really proud of the team here at Babington. Together we have worked exceptionally hard and it shows. We were recently awarded one of the 100 best companies to work for at the Times Best Companies awards, achieving the top placed training provider title for the East Midlands and a top three training provider overall, all of which demonstrates that as an organisation we live up to our collective commitment to be ‘Simply the Best’. I am pleased to hand over to David, under whose leadership Babington will continue to grow and flourish.” 

David brings his extensive experience in the education and training sector to Babington, to continue to drive Babington’s growth, in what has been widely reported to be a volatile and difficult time for the sector. 

On being appointed, David Marsh commented,

“I am very excited to be joining such an amazing business with so much potential. Carole has done an incredible job with the team, not only to significantly grow the business, but also to drive the business forward in terms of innovation and relationships at such a challenging time for the apprenticeship industry. I am really looking forward to picking up where Carole has taken the business to and work with the great people, clients, programmes and market leading position that Babington has, to deliver life changing apprenticeship and development programmes to all existing and new clients.” 

Richard Caston, RJD Partners, commented,

“We are absolutely delighted to have secured David – his expertise, knowledge and results will be a huge asset to Babington and we’re confident he will continue to build on the growth and ethos established through the leadership of Carole Carson over the past eight years. All of us at RJD would like to take this opportunity to thank Carole for all her hard work, determination and commitment which she has shown in helping to ensure Babington is a world class provider at the forefront of this ever-changing landscape.”