The Leap of Faith: Inspirational Tactics to Shift Your Career Path with Alex Crossman #55

After all, all art is experience. Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor, where today we're talking about what it takes to change careers and all the ways that you can best prepare yourself for that transition. Joining us on the episode is Alex Crossman, who's made the significant switch from being a high-flying investment banker to becoming headmaster of the London Academy of Excellence in the borough of Newark. Alex talks to Gary about the catalyst that prompted his career change and shares his advice for others looking to make a similar leap of faith. Don't forget to visit thecompanydoctor.com to subscribe for future episodes, peruse the past ones, and join the mailing list. And keep a lookout for Alex's book, Greater Expectations: Enabling Achievements for Disadvantaged Students, which is coming out soon. Gary, Alex, over to you.

A landscape, or even a bowl of fruit.

Hey, Alex, thank you so much for joining the Company Doctor podcast.

Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me again.

Really interesting episode today. We're talking about the leap of faith, inspirational tactics to shift your career path. And I'll tell you something, we've got an interesting guest in Alex. He's going to share some stuff with you, which I think is going to be a bit of an eye-opener. So just to start the ball rolling, Alex, just give us a quick intro to you, who you are and what you do.

So, uh, my name is Alex Crossman. I am the head teacher of a school called London Academy of Excellence, which is a 16 to 19 school, uh, based in Newham in East London. And we cater to a mostly disadvantaged student population, but we have some of the strongest, most impressive outcomes for A-level students anywhere in the country. So most of our students will go to Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Imperial, schools like that, universities like that, so obviously showing enormous amounts of progress. This is my second headship, but I'm a career changer, so I didn't become a teacher, let alone a headteacher, until I was 38, so obviously very recently. Recently. And actually, but prior to that, I worked in the city. I was, for my sins, an investment banker. And actually, even prior to that, I had a very brief career in financial journalism, which was the irregular route I took into the city.

Yeah, I mean, that's why it's such an interesting story and having you on. I'm really excited to talk to you. My first question is going to be an interesting one because I wanted to know when you were growing up, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I mean, it was so long ago, hard to remember, Gary, but I think probably I used to get cast as a journalist in sort of school plays. I think it was probably just because I wasn't very good at anything else. But inevitably, you know, the school nativity play would come around and they'd write in a role as a sort of newscaster, and that would inevitably be me. So that, I suppose, my first career felt a bit like typecasting. But a slightly more serious answer, most of my childhood, most of my early adolescence, I suppose I I probably thought I was going to be an academic, and truth be told, I thought I was going to be an academic until I was quite near the end of my PhD. But looking back on it, I probably thought that because I sort of grew up in the kind of household and community where you weren't exposed to a lot of different professions or professionals. So if you'd done well in school, the logical solution seemed to be, well, I'll just stay in something rather like a school, which I appreciate. Ironically, that is where I've ended up. But it was a sort of long, strange trip to get here.

But yeah, but I guess you didn't wake up and say, I want to be an investment banker then.

I did not. No, that is a fair point.

And how did you get to be an investment banker in your career?

Well, as I said, I mean, I sort of fell slightly into being a financial journalist whilst I was doing my PhD, actually, largely because my wife and I were blessed with our eldest son probably slightly earlier than we'd planned. And that didn't seem— parenthood and poverty didn't seem terribly compatible. So I needed to start freelancing. That turned into a job. I mean, I suppose, long-winded answer, but I was sort of in that world, sort of intellectually. I mean, I was writing about financial markets. I was talking to investment bankers all day, talking to traders, talking to salespeople. And at a certain point after a few years, someone said, well, you really should be doing this on this side of the phone rather than on your side of the phone. And for a variety of reasons, not all of them philosophical, that seemed to make sense when you had a small, a young family.

I think for people listening, because this is about career change, and shifting your career. You got to a pretty senior level at Deutsche Bank. I think you were global head of strategy and comms or something to that effect.

Yeah, for the corporate investment bank. So just to draw the distinction, obviously Deutsche Bank, like a lot of large financial institutions, I mean, has a variety of sort of independent, semi-independent businesses. So I ran the strategy function for what's called the corporate investment bank. Largely, I make no false pretensions here. I think I largely occupied that job because the person who originally offered me the job in the bank was was at first the head of sales within markets, then the head of markets, then the head of the corporate investment bank. And as he kept getting promoted, I kept getting promoted.

Yeah, I'm sure. I think it was a little bit more skill involved, but good to hear. So again, for people listening, you know, you can be, you know, top of your career, but still not being the place you want to be. So the question for you, Alex, what inspired you to leave, I guess, a thriving career in banking for education?

Well, I mean, I think in fairness, it was sort of a two-stage process. I mean, stage one was the dawning realization that I just, I didn't really feel fulfilled doing what I was doing. And I suppose to sort of, to kind of the sort of moment in which that sort of crystallized, I think in, I can't quite remember exactly, but probably immediately prior to the last financial crisis, I think I had what for most people would've been their best year. And it was certainly my most lucrative year in banking and therefore the most lucrative year I'm ever likely to have. And I remember leaving that conversation with my boss and feeling entirely hollow. I mean, I genuinely felt like, Obviously, I had done the job. I'd shown up and I'd shuffled various bits of paper around and had various conversations with people. But I honestly felt as though I'd done nothing all year, certainly nothing of value. And that if I hadn't shown up, probably all of the same things would have happened. And I just couldn't go on feeling that way. So, I mean, that was a moment of clarity. Took a little while. I probably spent a couple of years trying to work out what I wanted to do and convince myself that I would leave once I'd worked out what I wanted to do. And then my second moment of clarity was realizing that I had I had to leave in order to achieve the clarity that would lead me to the conclusion about what it was I wanted to do.

It's a big step.

Yeah, it was a big step. It was a big step, but it was a necessary step. And I really, I mean, I've never regretted that part of the decision. I don't think I should have carried on.

And after you had these lightbulb moments and then obviously put it into action, which a lot of people don't do, they have the lightbulb moments and then put it into action. How did your family and friends react to this decision to switch careers?

I mean, I think that's a really important point. I mean, my, my wife is a human rights lawyer. So she was, she was entirely comfortable with the idea of, you know, your profession as a kind of vehicle for your, your ethos, your values, and sort of really living those professionally. So she was immensely supportive. Obviously, it would have been harder if anybody in my immediate family were bought into the idea of, you know, working in the city and the sort of lifestyle that that might support indefinitely. We enjoyed it while we had it, but I don't think we've ever really missed it. So everybody reacted very well. I mean, I think, as I mentioned, it took a little while, the best part of a year sitting around, well, not really doing very much at all because I could, but thinking a lot about what I might prefer to do for the remainder of my career.

And did you have any, as you got kind of closer to it and you were about to resign from where you were, did you have any doubt?

No, I don't. I mean, in fairness, I mean, this probably won't be news to you, Gary Gamp, but I mean, you know, it was a very cosseted profession, even in quite turbulent times. Times. So I suppose, the truth be told, somewhere at the back of my mind was probably the thought that, you know, if I bailed out, had a sudden crisis of confidence, or just decided that I missed it, there was probably going to be a way back in. It's just that I never had that moment. I never had that moment at sort of 3 AM where you wake up and think, oh my God, what have I done? It was always very clear that I'd made the right decision.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get into your head for the moment where you kind of decided to leave and put it into action? Because again, a lot of people listening are in the same situation. They're not in the career they want to be, they want to switch. It's a big step that, you know, maybe earning good money— and, you know, money's not the only motivator, as you've demonstrated— but was there a switch that kind of made you get into action?

I think there was. I mean, it's pretty heavy depending on what time people of the day people may be listening to this, but, but yeah, I think there was. I mean, when, when I was about 35, uh, one of my best friends who had— we had very similar sort of educational background, very similar sort of similar kind of degrees, basically very similar people. But he had at a crucial moment in his early career, I mean, essentially shown more sort of resolve and integrity than I did at the time. And he'd gone off to work in a variety of sort of humanitarian relief organizations, ended up working for Save the Children in Darfur, where he was very sadly killed And we were the same age. And I think that was obviously very— it was very difficult, took a long time to process. But one of the things that it did leave me with was a sense that, you know, he had really spent his, unfortunately, very brief time on this earth adding an awful lot of value and saving an awful lot of people's lives. And obviously, I had done nothing that was remotely comparable to that. So I think that was a significant motivator.

Yeah, and we had a similar situation with the last episode where someone pivoted from their career into sort of pizza making from furlough. And again, there was a trigger, not as sad as your trigger. And from a kind of a skills point of view, you can understand that, you know, someone who has business skills that goes into a school can really kind of add some value.

Which skills from your previous role were invaluable to you in your current So I think, I mean, if you were somebody who had the word strategy in their job title, you'd expect me to say that sort of strategic thinking and planning has been quite— well, it has. I mean, that genuinely has been very important. I mean, prior to my current role, I set up a school. I set up a school from scratch. And I think that those skills— I don't wish to sort of offend any school leader who's had a more traditional path, right? There are lots of incredible people, genuinely incredible people running schools up and down the country. But as a rule, the profession doesn't equip you with those skills. It doesn't nurture them in quite the same way as a commercial career or a career in other fields might. So I think those skills have been invaluable. And then I suppose there are also just— there's a degree of resilience that I think you develop as a result of, you know, having a career. The City, as you know, is a sort of— it's a fairly in-your-face type environment. And given the types of school in which I've chosen to make a career, that was also pretty helpful.

Yeah, no, I can understand that because I was really trying to get underneath the covers on the, the linkage between, say, business and teaching, if there is any. And, you know, when you were maybe managing people in, in corporate life, is that in either direction either helped or hindered you in school life? And if you'd learn anything in school life, could you have put that back into business life?

Yeah, I think, I think both of those things are true. I mean, I think one of the things I would say to anyone considering a career change, you know, when I set out on this journey, obviously I made many assumptions assumptions, many of them were wrong. But the core assumption that proved to be correct was that the transition would be more challenging culturally than it was practically. So I was very aware that, that, that, you know, there are certain personality types that are overrepresented in certain sectors, some that are underrepresented. The personality types that are overrepresented in the securities industry are not the same personality types that are overrepresented in the teaching profession, particularly in maintained schools, state schools. And, and the culture tends to flow from that. So I was very aware that there would be that transition, that that would probably mean there was probably quite a lot of suspicion of me as an individual. Um, that, that proved to be true, and that I was going to have to work pretty hard to sort of win confidence and trust and get over that.

Yeah. And with that kind of transitioning, what sort of challenges should people look out for then when they're moving from a business sector to— or not actually, not to any career change— what's the sort of transitioning things they should look out for?

I mean, the first thing I think is most directly in your control, you know, what— to be critically self-aware. So, so you will have, in any context, you'll have behaviours that are more or less effective in that company, in that industry vertical, whatever it happens to be, but not to make the assumption that the same behaviours will yield the same sorts of results in a different sector. I mean, you may have to modify your behaviours, your approach to other individuals, quite dramatically to achieve more or less the same outcome. And I suppose sort of related to that, just to listen very carefully, to observe very carefully, you know, what are the norms? Because you don't necessarily have to accept all of the norms, but you do have to understand them if you're going to have any real impact.

Yeah, and I can imagine. And so from a personal growth point of view, what have you grown for the most since you moved?

I think, well, I mean, I'd like to think, you know, on the theme of different personality types and exercising those different skills, I'd like to think that I've become a lot more diplomatic. People who work with me currently might find that quite shocking, but I think I have become more diplomatic. I think I've modified the pace at which I go. I mean, I've spent a career in different sectors managing sort of reasonably medium and large-scale change, and that's still true. But in order to do that, in order to give people the sorts of psychological comfort they often need to navigate significant change. You have to work a lot harder and in a different way in an environment like a school or any other sort of public sector organisation where people can often assume that organisations have existed forever in more or less the same way, where tradition, ritual, routine is, is just more important and perceived as more difficult to shift than in corporations where I think on some level more or less everybody knows that things change and nothing lasts forever.

No, I agree. And Alex, you're sharing with us the sort of things you've modified, but are there any personal habits or routines that you stayed with you on both, both ends of your career?

Yeah, I mean, I think having a sort of open sense of curiosity. I mean, I think, you know, I've been through the same series of sort of psychometric profiles as any other executive in any, in any field, and the dominant personality trait always comes out as curiosity. So, I mean, I think, I think remaining relentlessly curious, remaining relentlessly open to learning and really being prepared to go where the evidence takes you. So as opposed to making sort of assumptions, be they rash or otherwise, just being very, very interested in the evidence base. I think that's been a sort of consistent feature of my career in whatever I've done.

Yeah, and I can see how it'd be important in your current career. And looking back on your career shift, what was the most rewarding aspect of moving and what surprised you the most?

I think the most rewarding aspect of moving, inevitably, is the day-to-day, face-to-face interaction with, over the course of the last 10 years, a really quite remarkably diverse range of young people in different personal circumstances, all of whom experience some degree of challenge at some point in time, and feeling that you have, you know, for the most part, been able to make a kind of positive contribution that's helped to them You know, sometimes that's to help them to build a better long-term future, and sometimes it's much more short-term. It's about sort of, you know, helping them through a very difficult patch in their lives. But you always feel, I think, that you have made a contribution and it does matter.

Yeah, I must admit, I visited the school and it's pretty impressive at all levels, you know, not only the qualifications. I think in 2019, was it 65% of all of your A-levels were A* or A, and then 93% of your students got an A* to a B. I mean, it's pretty impressive.

Yeah, I mean, it surely shocked me to say, but those numbers have actually gone up since then. I mean, obviously, fingers crossed for how— we're recording this about a week away from A-level results in 2023, so hopefully they will go up again. But in any case, yes, they are pretty impressive outcomes. I mean, I'm not for a moment suggesting that that's predominantly my achievement. Clearly it is not. I always say that the principal credit for that belongs to the young people themselves, secondarily to the extraordinary range of teachers and other professions we have in the school. And if there's anything left over, then I'll take it, but it has to be in that order.

Yeah, having— I met a number of your students and teachers, and there's an amazing culture and atmosphere, and, you know, people are, you know, it's just an impressive place. The thing that got me into meeting in the first place was there was a video that you produced on the back of, you know, some kind of wellbeing program. Oh, actually, I think you were top 3 finalist in the world's best schools. I think that was the video you made. That's right. It was a very impressive video and it kind of, it captured my interest for me wanting to meet you. Okay, look, let's switch gears a little bit. So thinking about someone who's thinking about switching careers, what advice would you give someone who's maybe considering a more drastic career change like you have, I guess, maybe to an unrelated field? What advice would you give someone?

So, I mean, I think the first thing is really to sort of critically examine your convictions. You know, why would you want to make this change? What is it about the sort of target sector or the target career that you find attractive? And I suppose to go one step further, I think career changing requires resilience. There will be testing times, there will be difficulties on some level. You might not be going right the way back to the beginning again, but you might. And in any case, if you've had a substantial career, it is likely that you're going to need to, you know, sort of take a bit of a sort of a step back in order to take a step forward. So the only, the only thing that will really take you through that journey successfully is, is sincere conviction that the target career is valuable, is doing something genuinely important, and you will find it genuinely satisfying. And if you don't have those two things— you can have one without the other— but if you don't have both both of those things, then I think it's a pretty big ask, and people may be better suited staying where they are and thinking about ways in which they can find fulfillment at the margin or in other ways. So I suppose that would be my first piece of advice.

Okay, yeah, I'm just— as you're saying, I'm thinking about what is the tipping point for that? How do you know that, you know, is it 51% towards it, or, you know, what is the point where you go, you know what, I'm— it's a strong enough conviction? How do you know?

Yeah, I mean, it's a tough one. I mean, it's a really tough one. I mean, I, I mean, you said earlier, and I absolutely agree, that, that quite a lot of people would feel this way. Really quite a lot of people would feel this way. Actually, I think the moment which I realized that most people I work with probably felt that way but weren't doing anything about it was also quite an important motivator. But yeah, I mean, I didn't— it'd be disingenuous to say that I used many sort of consulting tricks at the time, and I didn't particularly make a list. I was not drawing diagrams or trying to sketch out organograms or flowcharts that would somehow lead my way It through was more intuitive than that, but I did take time over it. I mean, I did, I wanted to feel secure first in the knowledge that it was time to move on. Of course, I was at the time in a position practically that I could do that and sort of, you know, I was in a position to fund my own retraining, for example, which I appreciate not everybody would have been. But I allowed that conviction to sort of fester for a while and sort of marinate. And then I suppose in my case, when thinking about what I wanted to do next, it was some combination of what's genuinely important in the world. And I suppose then as now, if you look around at the sort of the challenges that we face as a society, it's, you know, anything involved with sustainability or ecologism, it seems to be a pretty unalloyed source of social good. Medicine is always an unalloyed source of social good. And then you get education. And albeit it's, it's only my opinion, but it seems to me those, those three things are in a sort of category by themselves. And then there are other things in terms of more or less fundamental importance to the way in which society, a healthy society, would operate. So I think if you're in that sort of golden circle, then the chances are at least the first question, is it genuinely important, is answered. And then it's a question of, can you find a role within that sector that is going to speak to you personally, that you're going to find sufficiently fulfilling absent any other form of reward, right? Is it worth it on its own terms?

Yeah, I think a couple of other things that come up when I talk to people beyond that is either I don't know what I want to do— you clearly did, so that obviously gives you that fulfillment— and the second one is can I afford to move. They're the two other things that come up. What's your thoughts on those two things?

Well, uh, yeah, I don't know what I want to do. As I say, for me, the, the— I mean, in retrospect, this all seems very obvious, but at the time it wasn't. It was, it was quite difficult to say, you know, this is absolutely the thing that I want to do rather than the day job. For me, it was the— I was in this very fortunate position where I could, I could take the veritable leap of faith and I could take a break, and I had the benefit therefore of sort of clearing the decks, being able to think critically. And actually, pretty quickly after that, the proper career, the appropriate career for me presented itself and seemed as though it was always there, just waiting for me to sort of catch up with myself. In terms of can you afford to move, I mean, look, that's, that's, that's tough, right? I mean, people, people will have different answers. I mean, I suppose clearly if, you know, if I was someone who was, who had an eye on the next Maserati or the next yacht, I wouldn't have— I would still be working in the city. Clearly those things didn't, didn't matter in the same way as it did some of my colleagues. But, but I'm not at the other end of the spectrum either, you know. I mean, I don't pretend to be someone for whom lifestyle style is, is totally unimportant. It's just that I was, I was fairly happy with, you know, I was, I was fairly happy with my lot and I wasn't looking to become ever wealthier. I suppose every individual's got to come to a, to a judgment about what, what exactly is the lifestyle they want for themselves, what's the lifestyle they want for, for their family, and, you know, what's the trade-off that they're potentially prepared to make.

Yeah, so it's the trade-off between enjoying what you do or trying to aspire something else versus how much you're going to Well, yeah, I mean, it always seems—

and I obviously have these conversations a lot with, dare I say, people of roughly our age— what is the point of working 50 weeks a year to afford a lavish holiday 2 weeks a year if you— if those 50 weeks a year don't fill you with some other sense of fulfillment? Then, you know, I get a new car this year as I did last year, and I, you know, I get to go to Abu Dhabi as opposed to Dubai.

Smart man. You're a smart man. So let's reflect a bit. So looking back, Alex, what's the one thing you wish you knew before making the leap?

That's a really good question. What's the one thing that I wish I knew? I think probably it wasn't just this, even obviously, you know, sort of banking teacher is quite a big jump, and but there it's a jump made up of several smaller steps. I don't think I had any real sense of the profound difference between working in the private sector and the public sector. And I think that would have been very helpful. I think, I think if I'd been better briefed, or maybe if my, my research had just been more informed, taken a different route, I think I would have paid more attention to the difference between being in a sort of public sector role versus being in a private sector role, because the, the sort of the challenges and sometimes the frustrations are quite different.

Okay, so what motivates you then? What is the thing that motivates you the most?

Uh, oh, I mean, it's, it's, it's making a difference. I mean, I think the thing that's most motivating the current job is, is the daily opportunity to make a profoundly positive difference to young people. I mean, again, as you mentioned earlier, I'm in this enormously fortunate environment where we have this extraordinary group of students who just desperately want to make a difference. They want to make a difference in their own lives and they want to make a difference in other people's lives. And we are able to facilitate that. We get to work with those kids every day. I mean, that is of inestimable value.

No, I can— as I said, I saw it physically by attending. I was a bit nervous meeting the headmaster, to be honest, but, you know, it was great to come to a school after many years.

And then you realize who he was.

So yeah, and that was fine. That was good. Okay, I've got a couple more questions before I get to your musical taste. Again, just trying to help the listener. People are looking to, you know, switch careers. If you were going to write a book about your career journey, what would be the 3 key takeaways people need to consider in switching careers?

If there are only 3, uh, if there were only 3, I think, again, the risk of repeating myself, I think, I think You need real clarity about your motivation, real security and motivation. You need to know that that's a sincere motivation and that you're not just chasing something different. I think that's vital. You know, when you're 25 and no dependents, then okay, go for your life, do whatever you want to do. But if you're not, if you've advanced a bit further in your career, then you need to make a very concentrated series of bets and they've got to pay off. So you really need clarity about your motivations. If you've achieved that clarity, then I suppose the other thing I would say is don't compromise. So, I mean, that's a very easy thing to say, sort of having been through the sort of— well, hopefully having been through the more difficult part of the transition. But I know a number of people who have decided that they wanted to do something quite radical, and they've taken sort of two steps towards it and they stopped. And by that, I mean, you know, they might have wanted to stick with an education example. You know, they might have wanted to be a maths teacher, but they got into a school and decided, you know what, I'm going to be a school business director because that classroom thing looks a bit intimidating. Now, if you want to be a school business director because you think you can add a huge amount of value there, then you're probably right. And that's a noble cause, and I would entirely support that. But if it's a compromise versus something that is closer to your truer self, then I think it's a mistake. I think if you're going to do this, then, you know, you really have to do the thing that you'd set your heart on. And I suppose finally, again, I suppose I'd come back to that point about sort of cultural difference and being acutely sensitive. Like, in any profession, whichever sector we operate in, we are rarely, you know, lone agents. We're really likely to have significant impact. We're really likely to do anything that's particularly valuable by ourselves. We need to take other people with others. So I would say being acutely aware of the environment. I mean, one of the big payoffs, which I've failed to mention, is, you know, frankly, most teachers are just very nice people, right? I mean, they're nice people, they're convivial colleagues. It's a great environment in which to work. And that's— I mean, I'm not saying that there were not nice people working in investment banking. Clearly there were, there were. But again, there's a difference. There's a— not all of them, no. It was that you get to socialize, or you could socialize with a wider cross-section of your colleagues in this profession than in my last one.

Wow. I'll tell you what, they're great ones to finish up on. So before we get to your musical taste, Alex, thank you so much for coming on. I know that you talked about making a difference. You generally are. You know, it's a really impressive thing that you're undertaking. I appreciate it's a team effort, but thanks for coming on. I think it gives people a good insight into switching careers and the good and the bad and the difficulties of doing so. But it sounds like the goal, you know, if the goal is big enough, then it's a good thing to go and to consider. So let's talk about your musical taste. As you know, we have a playlist that is from our guests, they're kind of inspirational music or things that matter to them that we can add to the Company Doctor playlist. So what are your 1 or 2 tracks that we can add?

So I suppose I should, I mean, I'm very involved in music, I'm a big music fan, so it's always hard to boil this down to 1 or 2 things. So I'm going to choose use a couple of songs that are important to me because they have resonance with my family. So my wife and I have been together for terrifyingly nearly 30 years, uh, and I, I, I, I wouldn't quite say it's the bedrock of our relationship, but, but quite close to the bedrock, the upper mantle, is our shared love of Bruce Springsteen. So, uh, so I would, I would probably go for a song called Land of Hope and Dreams, which, uh, was, was a sort of concert staple for, for decades before it was recorded. So it makes me think of singing and doing other mostly quite embarrassing things with her at Springsteen concerts, which we've done many times. And the other one, uh, sort of to widen out to the whole family, it would be The Universal by Blur. Now I'm not generally a huge Blur fan, but it's a song that we listened to at Glastonbury with our kids when they were much younger, and you know, it, it was, it was a near sort of religious experience at that at the moment, so that's quite special.

Great, thank you so much. What great choices. And by the way, I love the kind of nod to your younger side. The Glastonbury nod is impressive.

That's— no, no, I mean, that's not my younger side. I mean, why would you think that, Gary?

That's brilliant.

The Donington Monsters of Rock Festival would be my younger side, but this is very much a current obsession.

That's fantastic. So, Alex, thanks so much for coming on. Really, it's been really interesting and helpful and inspirational, actually. Thanks for coming on, and I'll hopefully see you again soon.

Thank you very much.

A big thanks to our brilliant and inspiring guest Alex Crossman for joining us today. Alex's book Greater Expectations: Enabling Achievement for Disadvantaged Students will be available from reputable book retailers soon and draws on Alex and his co-author Ian Warwick's highly successful mission to combat disadvantage by providing ambitious young people from lower-income homes with an education on par with the best available in the independent sector. I imagine there are lots of young people out there who will be immensely grateful that Alex made that career change leap of faith when he did, and we are very grateful to him for sharing his story and advice as our guest on this episode. Thanks to you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.