MBE honours joy for Sunderland business boss

A Houghton man has reason to celebrate after being awarded an MBE.

Jack Robert Clarke Deverson, 31, is the co-founder and managing director of Sunderland-based Evidence Based Education.

He has won the MBE for services to education in the New Year Honours and described it as a 'total surprise'.

'When the letter dropped through my door, I was totally dumbstruck," he said.

The honour continues a wonderful period for Mr Deverson and his business.

In December 2023, EBE was awarded a contract to deliver training to 23,000 teachers in the UAE over the next two years.

The contract will see EBE translate courses from its popular Great Teaching Toolkit into Arabic.

Mr Deverson said the recent success of the firm, and his honour, was 'lovely recognition for the hard years of work by people in EBE'.

He said: "It has gone from strength to strength. Some of the planning decisions we made during the Covid pandemic seem to have paid off."

In 2019, EBE was presented with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation.

Founded in 2015, EBE has grown steadily year on year and is currently made up of 17 employees. 

Mr Deverson also volunteers in the education field and said: "I feel pretty strongly about education being the best opportunity that kids have to level the playing field and move up the social ladder."

Also on the Honours List is another Wearside businessman, Nigel Begg, of Aspire Technology Solutions.

He gains an MBE for services to digital and technology industry growth in the North East.

Aspire was founded by Nigel alongside business partner Chris Fraser around 17 years ago.

It is one of the UK’s fastest-growing IT companies, and has won a number of awards over the years.