Meet our team

Dukes Education's international team covers the globe. For more information, get in touch directly with an ambassador or sales team member in your region.

Gianluca Polidori

Sales Director
Languages: Italian, English

Gianluca has more than 22 years’ experience in international education, inspiring large audiences with his motivational talks on leadership and marketing and sales, a field which is his passion. 

Henrietta Lightwood

International Admissions & Marketing Director
Languages: English

For 16 years, Henrietta worked in public relations and marketing consultancy for big blue-chip corporates. In 2004, Henrietta joined a British independent school as their Director of Marketing and Admissions and since then has held similar positions at three other schools before joining Dukes Education.

Natalia Volchugova

Associate Director, International Student Recruitment
Languages: Russian, English

Since 2013, Natalia has been working in the international school sector, where she looks after the European, Russian, and CIS market for student recruitment and agent relations.

Florence Chow

Regional Manager
Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English

Florence was born in Hong Kong and was educated in Business at Douglas College, Canada. She has eight years’ work experience in recruitment for overseas summer schools all around English speaking countries and has been working as a regional manager for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China at large education groups for the last 10 years.

Jasmine Nie

Regional Manager for North China
Languages: English, Chinese

Jasmine graduated from China Foreign Affairs University. She has 13 years’ experience in marketing and student recruitment for UK, Europe, and Australian institutions.

Sharon Ehimwenma

Regional Manager for Africa
Languages: English

Sharon is a Nigerian from the great Benin Kingdom and she was educated in Public Administration at the University of Benin. With five years of experience in educational marketing and student placement, she is the African Representative for Dukes Education

Tony Blignaut

Regional Admissions Director, Asia
Languages: English, Dutch, Afrikaans

Tony is a US citizen, educated in Colorado, USA, and South Africa. He has worked for top independent boarding schools in the UK as International Recruitment Director for South East Asia. Tony is the Regional Admissions Director for South-East Asia for Dukes Education.

Melanie Symons

Registrar
Languages: English

Mel has a strong background in administration and coordination, having worked at several high profile law firms. Mel joined Cardiff Sixth Form College where she started-off as College Secretary before become the College Registrar. In her role, she is responsible for coordinating the admission of all students.

Gemma Eccles

Database Administrator
Languages: English

Gemma is the first point of contact for Consultant Agreement enquiries. She also manages online enquiries and exhibition reports, oversee Consultant data, and administer data from events. She has previously worked in Research and Statistics roles in universities and government offices after completing her BSc in Psychology at Cardiff University.

Zack Abdulhamid

Regional Manager for MENAT & Levant region.

Languages: Arabic, English.

Zack was born in Libya and completed his education in UK. Starting his career in the education industry in 2009, he helped enrol students from the MENA region to UK universities. Since, Zack has worked in a variety of different roles in regions such as MENA, Africa, South Asia, South Europe and North Africa with UK, Australian and US institutes. Also throughout his career, Zack has managed agents, schools and government sector relationships.