One of the UK’s fastest growing children’s nursery groups has appointed a new chief exec to oversee its growth and focus on bringing the best quality employees to its team.

Ollie Humphries, 41, from Cambridgeshire, is bringing his senior level experience from the retail and hospitality sector to support Family First’s ambitious plans to grow and expand.

Humphries said: “I’m so excited to be joining an organisation which shares my own ethos for attracting the best staff, with a vision to move newly acquired nurseries from Good to Outstanding and provide exceptional quality childcare.”

The chairman of Family First, Andy Morris, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Ollie to our team, with his experience of working in large organisations going through transformation and his focus on attracting the most talented staff to work for us. We chose him because he’s a great people person.

“We’ve grown to 17 nurseries since acquiring our first nursery group in June 2019, now offering more than 1,000 childcare places within a 35-mile radius of London. We’re on target to reach 30 nurseries by the end of August. It was therefore crucial that we found the right person to maintain our fantastic momentum.”

Humphries was previously managing director of restaurant chain Frankie and Benny’s, and formerly a divisional director at William Hill with accountability for the people and P&L of 1250 branches. He has also been a franchise operations leader for over 600 KFC restaurants. In his spare time, he enjoys competing in duathlons, skiing and coaching the local U7s football team.