Sir Paul Marshall has stepped down from his role as chair and trustee of the Ark Schools board.
He had “indicated earlier in the year his intention to step down from the Ark Schools board to focus on other philanthropic and business commitments,” Ark said in a statement today.
In February, the News Agents podcast had reported that Sir Paul had liked and retweeted far-right statements on an account on the social media site, X.
Sir Paul told News Agents at the time that the tweets were not aligned with his views and represented “a small portion” of his social media posts.
Ark Schools has announced Tina Alexandrou will replace Sir Paul, who was one of Ark’s founders.
Ms Alexandrou has been both vice chair and board lead for safeguarding and inclusion on the Ark Schools board.
Sir Paul said: “Ark Schools is an amazing organisation. It has been a great privilege to support its growth as chair. It has been a great pleasure working with all of you and I will of course continue to support Ark in other ways in the coming years.”
Sir Paul is a Conservative Party donor, co-founder of a hedge fund and owns news website UnHerd.
Ms Alexandrou said she was looking forward to taking on the new role.
“I would like to thank Paul for his very long-standing and passionate commitment to Ark Schools,” she added.
Ark Schools currently has 39 academies under chief executive officer Lucy Heller.
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