Our Founder

Chey Clinton

Founder & Director

Chey didn't arrive at this work from the outside. She's been inside schools as a teacher, coordinator, and deputy principal, and she understands firsthand what it takes to build a culture where staff and students can thrive.

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Her career began in some of the most complex school environments: classrooms shaped by trauma, disadvantage, and significant learning needs. It was there she realised that good intentions weren't enough. Schools needed a whole-school approach to wellbeing that was practical enough to actually use on a Monday morning.

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That conviction led her deeper into study and further into leadership. A background in psychological sciences gave her language and frameworks to match what she was already seeing, including the role of development, neuroscience, and trauma in shaping how students and staff show up every day. One of the things that drives her most is the gap between what the research says and what actually happens in classrooms and staffrooms, and finding ways to close it.

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Through her leadership roles and consulting work, she's worked from the inside on the kind of change that is genuinely hard to do well: policy development, stakeholder engagement, and navigating the complexity of bringing a whole school community along. She knows that shifting culture isn't a program or a one-off PD. It's slow, considered work that requires everyone at the table.

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That experience led to the founding of The Culture Collective, where Chey worked nationally with schools and organisations to build the capacity of individuals and teams. Over several years, she designed and delivered professional learning, conducted whole-school wellbeing and culture reviews, gathered staff and community voice to help schools understand where they were really at, and supported leadership teams to develop frameworks, align on purpose and vision, and shift the language and systems around them. She also spoke at conferences as a keynote presenter, bringing the same conviction to large audiences that she brings to individual schools. It was consulting work grounded in the real experience of having been in the role, and it shaped everything that came next.

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Stoa Education is the next evolution of that work, sharper in focus and built around what school leaders have told her they need most.

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Credentials:

Chey holds a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Psychological Sciences, with experience spanning primary, secondary, and early childhood settings across South Australia. She also works with universities to support pre-service teachers and has spoken as a keynote presenter at education conferences, and facilitated professional learning for educators at a state and national level.