Dr Spence joined the School Partnerships Alliance as CEO in January 2025. Joe was Master of Dulwich College from 2009 to 2024.  In June 2024 he was awarded Tes Headteacher of the Year (Independent) for his long-standing commitment to partnerships. Under Joe’s leadership, Dulwich developed many mutually-beneficial school partnerships, promoted national SCITT programmes and supported Saturday Schools for primary school children in Science, the Arts and Mathematics.

Joe is a co-chair of the FED’s National Education Assembly and has been a governor of more than a dozen schools (state and independent) and a trustee of several arts and youth charities, including the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association and the North Wall Trust. He was a director of the Southwark Schools Learning Partnership from 2015 to 2024.