The senior expert you brief
is the one who delivers.
Direct with Charles · 30 minutes · he runs the call himself.
The analysis gap at the top of your institution.
Consequential decisions on portfolio, structure, people and strategy are being made on partial evidence, with little time to interrogate it.
Senior leaders are asked to decide faster, on thinner evidence, with higher consequences, and without the analytical bench they need.
Internal teams are stretched. External firms bring scale, but also process, handover and generic benchmarks that don't fit your institution.
HE Perform is built for the case in between: senior, independent analysis delivered directly by the person you brief.
Analysis and advice across the HE leadership agenda.
Five engagements, built around the decisions senior teams actually face. Every project is shaped to your institution.
Senior expertise, without the firm.
Every engagement is mine from first call to final paper. Where a brief needs specialist expertise, I bring it in — but you always deal with me, and I answer for the whole piece of work.
One person accountable.
The person you brief does the work and answers for it, billed as one clear engagement.
Built for HE, not borrowed.
Frameworks shaped by the realities of UK higher education, not retrofitted from corporate or public-sector practice.
Evidence you can defend.
Every recommendation comes with the analysis and assumptions behind it. Your board, exec and staff can all follow the logic.
Independent senior HE expertise, without the firm behind it.
Dr Charles Knight
HE Perform was founded by Dr Charles Knight, who brings more than 20 years in UK higher education across executive leadership, teaching excellence, governance and analytics. He spent 2022 to 2026 at Advance HE, the sector's principal membership and professional body, rising to director level: as Director of Educational Excellence and Student Success, accountable for the Professional Standards Framework across 300+ member institutions; and as Director of Leadership and Governance, running the Top Management Programme and Aurora, the largest women's leadership programme in UK higher education.
Before Advance HE he led student experience and performance as Associate Dean at the University of Salford and Associate Director at Edge Hill University, served on University Senate and Academic Board, and gave oral evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. He holds a PhD from the University of Leeds and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Every engagement is led and delivered by Charles personally — if a piece of work needs specialist hands, he brings them in and stays your single point of contact.
Some organisations prefer to engage Charles as an individual rather than contract a company; that work runs through his personal practice at charlesknight.co.uk.
Start with a conversation.
If you're weighing a decision that matters, on people, money or strategy, a short call is the best place to start.
Thirty minutes, no pitch. You describe what's in front of you; I'll tell you honestly whether HE Perform is the right fit, and what a useful piece of work could look like.
If I'm not the right match, I'll say so, and point you to someone who is.