Educated in Sawley, Derbyshire; Long Eaton, Derbyshire and Sheffield Hallam University.

Employed since the age of 14.  Employement has included a fruit and vegetable shop, A vending Machine Company (engineering) and in Education firstly as a primary teacher, moving onto Advisory Teacher (Consultant for ICT) and then as Content and e-Services Manager for Lincolnshire County Council - NETLinc.

Having six years teaching experience and a further five years working at Local Authority level both in operational school improvement and in strategic development of e-learning and associated systems and services within Lincolnshire Darren brings a high level of professionalism and experience to his post.  Darren is highly computer literate and skilled in the management and delivery of the curriculum using ICT. He has experience in the development and implementation of e-learning systems and content at county and regional level. His experience also encompasses dealing with national suppliers, governmental and non governmental educational bodies and negotiating authority wide contracts with suppliers.  Darren also has significant experience in county and region-wide infrastructure for the delivery and support of ICT to teachers, learners and the community.  All of this is driven by his enthusiasm, passion for e-learning and ability to see the larger picture.

For a number of years Darren's role saw him working with other local authorities via the RBC "technical / operations" and the "content and learning Platform" user groups.  Darren was heavily involved in specifying the Lincolnshire requirements for the EMBC retender for broadband provision and services.  Much of his work at regional level was to do with technical specification and service management monitoring of the broadband  service provided to the East Midlands region and in particular Lincolnshire, this coupled with the service management monitoring role he undertakes for Lincolnshire with its strategic partners put him in a key position to have a complete overview of service provision to Lincolnshire Schools, this allowed  Darren to work with the suppliers in a partnership approach to proactively raise service provision standards.

Following a number of sucessful years working in the public sector Darren moved to work for one of the UKs leading Building Schools for the Future (BSF) ICT providers, Ramesys.  Initially appoitned as a change managment specialist, Darren now works as the BSF Bid Team Leader for the Midlands and North.  Darren has worked at various levelvs with the Ramesys team on sucessful BSF bids in Tower Hamlets; Greenwich, Nottingham City and Rochdale. 

Darren lives in Lincolnshire with his wife and two children.