Insights

As the Chief People Officer for EU & USA at Cognita Schools, Emily Lofting-Kisakye has the task of supporting a vast network of private education institutions and a team of corporate colleagues. Our Head of Marketing, Sam Collier, spoke to her about her career path and the specific challenges of HR in the education sector. 

What does the role of Chief People Officer look like at Cognita?

It's very much a broad remit. My role encompasses all areas of generalist HR with a specific focus on all things talent, company culture and the future of work.

As someone who’s worked in different sectors previously, how does the role of HR differ in education?

The dynamic of HR within this sector is very different: you have to have a service mindset and be very well-planned in strategic delivery. The ability to bring the leaders with you on the journey, as opposed to the top-down mindset you find in other sectors, is crucial to successful strategy delivery. 
The ability to work this way makes you a better leader; the skills you develop here will make you better at your job, whatever the environment.

Your background is at Urban Outfitters Inc. group of brands. How did you find the switch from retail to education?

The bigger difference was moving into a private equity backed organisation. With private equity, there is more of an ongoing push for momentum and evolution.

You have been a champion for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion throughout your career. What does that look like at Cognita?

It’s driven by my personal experience as a female executive and my family dynamic. My husband is black, and my children are mixed race, which gives me a much deeper and real understanding of the layers of privilege, gender, race, and education.

At Cognita, we began the DE&I journey in Inclusion. Inclusion is a very natural space to evolve in the education sector as our teams are leading with inclusion every day with the children in our care. Regarding the next layer of our DE&I work, we are focused on gender equity, where the pay gap reporting has helped us to evolve the conversation. We have an internal global report in addition to the required UK report, and we’re very intentional about how we work to take our impact widely and deeply throughout the organisation.

We have to remember that DE&I is a marathon, not a sprint. There is always more work to do. We’re now progressing to foundational training and coaching for female top talent and implementing new policies and guidance across the organisation to support our maturity and growth in this area.

AI is a hot topic in just about every industry. Is it something you’re using? How do you see it being used going forward?

We have a new policy and guidance group working on how to best support the use of AI across the organisation. In the People area specifically, as an example we’re starting to use it in data analysis to analyse Engagement Survey verbatim comments more efficiently. I see it as a tool to enhance data rather than one that will replace people.

We’re not using it in recruitment at the moment, as we feel it’s important to retain the human connection.