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Nathanael Jackson, who was School Captain in 2011–2012, is now heading for a rank of a different kind, as he heads off to Sandhurst early in the New Year to join the commissioning course.

“I am currently visiting different regiments, but am hoping to join the infantry,” he wrote to the School recently.

It is a new departure for Nathanael (OE 2005–2012), who was neither a member of the QE CCF nor of the University Officer Training Corps at Durham, from where he graduated with a 2:1 in History in the summer.

Characteristically, he threw himself fully into university life. “I had a great time studying History. I kept up playing rugby and played football for college, but mainly I have been playing lots of music, especially trombone with the University Big Band, with which we have been performed at gigs in Durham, Darlington, Newcastle, Manchester and as far south as London, at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho. We even won the Great North Jazz and Big Band Festival last year.

“I have been heavily involved with the Christian Union and my local church up in Durham, leading small group Bible studies for the last couple of years. Last year I was also fortunate enough to have been chosen to lead a charity expedition to Tanzania, where we climbed Kilimanjaro and completed the construction of a local school, as well as relaxing and enjoying what the country had to offer.

“Somewhere amongst all this I have also managed to fit in my History degree, which I have loved! In my final year, I worked on changes in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, the fall of Roman Gaul and the rise of ‘barbarian’ successor states, and wrote my dissertation on the emergence of the newspaper in the years preceding the English Civil War.”

Ashish Kalraiya (OE 1997–2004) has qualified as a surgeon and will be taking up a new post as an Orthopaedic Registrar in the spring.

Passing his MRCS surgical examinations is the latest milepost in a career that has so far seen Ashish secure a degree in Management and win plaudits for developing mobile phone applications – in addition to his medical successes.

Ashish looks back on his time at QE, where he returned as Guest of Honour at the 2011 Junior Awards Ceremony, with both fondness and gratitude. “As I’ve always said, nothing could have been achieved without the help and support of QE Boys and all its staff. So that really has set the foundation for my career.”

After leaving QE in 2004, Ashish spent the next six years at Imperial College, where he graduated from the Medical School with an MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) qualification and also took a first in BSc Management at Imperial’s Business School.

From 2010–2012 he worked as a Foundation Doctor in North London, before moving to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, to train in Trauma and Orthopaedics for eight months.  “That was a fantastic experience for gaining exposure to complex trauma – for example, from road traffic accidents. I received great training from extremely friendly and diligent surgeons. It’s a great country as well, full of history, culture and safari.”

Since he returned, he has worked as a surgical house officer in North London and most recently was working close to the School in the Orthopaedic Department at Barnet General Hospital “which feels as though I have come full-circle, given that I did my first-ever work experience here as a 16-year-old after GCSEs!”

Ashish has also developed applications for healthcare staff to use to eradicate ward inefficiencies and save money for the hospital. The app, which is called MediShout, has been successfully trialled and was a finalist in two awards schemes. In 2014, Ashish was himself a finalist in the Rising Star category of the EHI Awards, which recognise excellence in healthcare IT in the UK.

In late 2015, he undertook some work in orthopaedics in Malawi to obtain further exposure to high-trauma environments.

His new role as an Orthopaedic Registrar, starting in April, will see him working in hospitals across North West London.

Sport psychology expert Mustafa Sarkar’s career is progressing by leaps and bounds, after he gained his PhD, won another award and secured a permanent job in academia.

Mustafa (1997–2004) was awarded his PhD in Sport Psychology from Loughborough University in July. After the completion of a two-year post-doctoral role as a Research Fellow at the University of Gloucestershire, he has now taken up a permanent Lecturing post in Sport Psychology at Nottingham Trent University in September, where he teaches across the undergraduate and post-graduate Sport Science degree programmes.

Mustafa was also awarded the British Psychological Society (BPS) Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) PhD award for 2015 – the latest in a series of awards and prizes that he has won over the last few years.

After taking A-levels in Economics, Chemistry and Mathematics at QE, Mustafa spent a gap year working for PricewaterhouseCoopers as an assistant tax consultant for eight months and travelled in South America for three months.

He went to Loughborough University, from where he graduated in July 2008 with a first-class honours degree in Sport and Exercise Science. He then went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology (with Distinction) from Middlesex University.

In 2009, he was named Xcel Sports Student of the Year, with the judges praising him for his academic work, for coaching cricket with Loughborough school children, for climbing five UK mountains for charity and for running the London Marathon for charity, raising £2,350.

Other awards he has won include Loughborough University’s Sir Robert Martin Faculty Prize for academic and non-academic achievements and the Head of School’s Postgraduate Prize for Academic Excellence, awarded annually to the student with the highest overall mark in a Masters Programme. He also received the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) Masters Dissertation of the Year Award in 2011.

At the time of the London 2012 Olympics, he made headlines in the mainstream press with a piece of in-depth research – conducted jointly with his Loughborough supervisor (Dr. David Fletcher) – which looked into the psychology of 12 Olympic Gold Medal winners, exploring how resilience helped them to achieve success.

In his new Lecturing post at Nottingham Trent University, Mustafa is Module Leader for ‘Advanced Topics in Sport and Exercise Psychology’ as well as contributing to several other modules across the undergraduate curriculum (eg ‘Introduction to Research’). He is also Leader for the postgraduate module, ‘Current Issues in Sport and Exercise Psychology’.

Mustafa is married to Tasnim, who is a qualified speech therapist workjing in the NHS. His younger brother, Mustali (OE 2000–2007) got married in 2013, just a few months after Mustafa’s wedding.

Aaron Sonenfeld is enjoying life in New York as he forges an international career in management consultancy.

Aaron (OE 2000–2007) was School Captain in 2006-2007 – one of three former School Captains to feature in this issue of Alumni News (with Nathanael Jackson and James Slessor).

While at the School, he was a major figure in rugby, playing for the First XV for a number of years. He has since maintained a passion for sports, and especially rugby, having played for the Cambridge University U21 side while reading Social and Political Sciences at St John’s College.

On graduating in 2010, he began work as an analyst in Operations at Goldman Sachs, where he had been an intern the previous year. He worked there until mid-2012 and then spent two months exploring Central America.

Aaron returned to the School in 2011 for the 46th Elizabethan Union Dinner debate in 2011, where he spoke for the Old Elizabethans in favour of the motion This house believes universities have become too expensive, which was carried.

In October 2012, he took up a post as a senior consultant, specialising in financial services, at management consultancy Oliver Wyman. Founded in New York in 1984, Oliver Wyman now has offices in more than 50 cities across 26 countries.

“Over the past three years, I have worked on projects with a number of financial institutions in London, Zurich, Madrid, and Toronto,” says Aaron.

In January this year, he was promoted to associate at Oliver Wyman and he moved to New York in March. He has set himself the target of visiting all 50 states in the US.

James Slessor (OE 1988–1995) has fulfilled the promise he showed at School, rising to an international senior management role with one of the world’s leading professional services companies.

James became School Captain at QE, having been singled out for his all-round contribution to School life as well as his ability as a public speaker.

He went on to Bristol University, where he achieved a first-class degree in Geography.

Employed by Accenture, for 15 years he has led a range of programmes involving public safety and operational policing.

Today he is Managing Director for Accenture Police Services. “This covers the work we do in policing, justice, borders, intelligence, prisons and rehabilitation,” he says.

He is currently Accenture’s Client Director on the Police Scotland i6 Programme, which will see more than 120 IT and paper-based local and regional systems replaced by a single, new national operational policing system.

He advises on Accenture’s policing engagements across Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Singapore, Australia, and the U.S.

In addition, James leads Accenture’s virtual Policing Center of Excellence, which draws together the latest international insight to build new processes, technology solutions and drive innovation within policing.

James has written extensively in leading industry publications on a range of policing topics, including social media and police information management.

James Cartlidge wasted no time before putting his expertise in housing to good use after being elected as South Suffolk Conservative MP. Within three months of the May 2015 General Election, he was appointed chairman of a new All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Housing and Planning.

James (OE 1985–1992) is the founder and director of Share to Buy, a social housing business that was launched in 2004. He also previously volunteered as a small-business advisor to the homelessness charity, St Mungo’s Broadway, which involved sitting on a panel to decide which of St Mungo’s clients would receive grants to start a small venture.

On his appointment as chairman, James said: “Having spent my working life in the shared-ownership housing sector, I am acutely aware of the challenges facing first-time buyers, particularly in London. Equally, as a rural MP, I recognise the need for development to be sustainable.

“Ultimately, there are a whole raft of complex issues in housing and planning today but I hope that our APPG can make a real contribution to the debate.”

After leaving QE, James read Economics at Manchester University, gaining a first-class degree. He joined Conservative campaign headquarters as a researcher, then became a freelance journalist, writing leaders for the Daily Telegraph and opinion pieces for the Guardian and The Spectator.

After that, he set up Share to Buy, which is described as a ‘one-stop shop’ for affordable housing and first-time buyers. The business includes a shared-ownership property portal and a mortgage broker, and it hosts the London Home Show. The portal lists all the properties available from the Mayor of London’s FIRST STEPS scheme, providing the platform at no cost to the taxpayer.

James lives in Assington, near Sudbury, with his wife Emily and four children. She is the daughter of Sir Gerald Howarth, Aldershot’s Conservative MP. The couple survived the Asian tsunami whilst on honeymoon in Sri Lanka in 2004 because their hotel was the only one in their resort left standing.

Until becoming an MP, James was a councillor for Babergh District Council in South Suffolk. He first stood for Parliament in 2005, in Lewisham Deptford, where he finished third.

As South Suffolk MP, he supports various campaigns relevant to his constituency, with causes ranging from rail and road improvements to a bid to secure Unesco World Heritage Site status for the historic village of Lavenham. At Westminster, in November 2015 he became a member of the Public Accounts Commission.

In his spare time, James is drummer for a local band, Tequila Mockingbird, and also enjoys cycling around South Suffolk.