10. CEO Talk with Mark Coggins: How to Building A Global Education Enterprise

How do you build and scale a global private education business?

In this episode, I sit down with Mark Coggins, former CEO of Kaplan Asia and co-founder of Cranleigh China, to uncover the strategies behind growing education businesses across international markets. 🌍📚

Not only was Mark my boss and mentor at Kaplan, but he also played a key role in shaping my understanding of the private education sector. From investment banker to private education leader, he has successfully applied financial and strategic principles to education, building Kaplan Asia into one of the largest global private education providers across China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. His insights on running a successful education business are always thought-provoking—proving that great student outcomes at a reasonable cost are possible. 

💡 What you’ll learn in this episode: ✅ Why did Mark transition from a lucrative career in investment banking to education? ✅ What key lessons did he learn while scaling Kaplan Asia across global markets? ✅ What are the mindset differences between public and private education? ✅ What are the four pillars of leadership that drive success in education businesses? ✅ How should education evolve in the era of AI ? ✅ What are Mark’s three biggest life lessons on success, wealth, and legacy?

🎵 Music for this episode  🎼 Introduction Music: Mark’s Taking Lead in Five 🎼 Ending Song: From Central to Classroom 

The two AI-generated pieces of music are uniquely designed for this episode, echoing the themes of transformation, leadership, and impact. Hope you enjoy the sound of innovation! 🎶

🔗 For more insights from Mark, follow him on LinkedIn: @markcoggins

 

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome to Insights Out with Dr.
Jen.
I'm your host, Dr.
Jennifer.
Today, I'm very pleased to invite someone who is very important in my life, my career, mybusiness, everything I learned.
I learned from him.
And he is my boss and always my mentor, Mark Coggins.

(00:29):
Mark was my boss at Kaplan from 2002 to 2009.
More than that, he has ever since become a pioneer in global private education.
From driving Kaplan Asia's expansion into China, Singapore, Australia, to co-founding hisown enterprise, Korea China, and now he's leading KB Financial, one of the largest

(00:58):
professional training institution in China for university students.
Today, we will talk about his journey from investment banking to education.
You don't normally see people in education who was an investment banker.
So why he joined the education from a very lucrative investment banking business career?

(01:24):
We will ask him.
And also, he has grown Kaplan so big that he basically set up
Kaplan Australia Business School and all the other network schools from scratch.
We will ask him what takes him to scale up educational business in such a vast multiplemarkets.

(01:49):
Lastly, we will hear his vision on the future of the education, of course, in the times ofAI, leadership philosophy, work-life balance and...
his reflection and advice on success, challenge, and his legacy for the world.
So if you are interested in how a CEO thinks and lives, this is the episode for you.

(02:15):
You can follow Mark on LinkedIn for more of his insight.
Now let's get started.
So Mark, welcome to my podcast.
when I started it.
I think definitely I need to talk to you.
Do you still remember?
When did we meet for the first time?

(02:38):
god, back in early...
the early 2000s.
In Shanghai, I think.
Yeah, that's a very special time I never forget because it's 2003 the last time we justexperienced COVID.
So I always went back to think, oh God, Mark was very brave at that time.

(02:59):
Mark visited Shanghai in 2003 to see me because I was just joined Kaplan FTC by then.
and struggled to figure out what to do in Kaplan, China.
And Mark also joined the Kaplan at that time, 2003.
So he said, Denver, I'm coming to Shanghai to talk to you.

(03:23):
So he came to Shanghai for the first time.
We're all wearing masks, but that was a very, very successful first trip because wevisited a lot of clients and I knew at the end of the trip, this is the boss.
I have dreamed of and this is the man I want to work with because he basically gave mestrategy but more importantly he put his words into action.

(03:53):
Not many boss do that and he also treat me very fairly and well.
One thing very successful during your first trip was we visited one of China's very biginvestment bankers, the securities firm.
They were very impressed about your investment banking background.

(04:16):
You literally saw my first program or first class in China.
And they decided to send a delegation to Hong Kong Kaplan for the training.
Let's back to my first question I never asked you so much.
You're so successful in investment banking.
Why you decided to go to education, which is not quite related, accounting background andthe investment.

(04:46):
What is the motivation?
Good question.
And it wasn't such a huge leap as it may seem in the sense that I'd always liked teaching.
I'd also always liked education.
And, when we started, it was kind of education, but it was very specific as far asfinancial education, financial training, really more than education, I guess, if you make

(05:09):
a distinction between those two.
And so it just felt that there was a set of skills and knowledge that I'd built up.
that presented an opportunity to kind of build a valuable business, not in just the senseof being financially valuable and successful, but also in terms of providing a set of

(05:32):
tools and a tool bag for young people who were new into the industry.
And, you know, and that was a great success and also a sense of great satisfaction becauseit also coincided with a time on the China side where
It had a lot of very bright young people who were desperately in need of some direction interms of what they were supposed to be doing.

(05:56):
And because the industry was so new and had grown up so quickly, they themselves didn'treally have companies and bosses who were providing them with any kind of framework or
structure to develop their careers themselves.
And so as a result,
quite often with these things then timing is important and we hit on a very rich scene.

(06:21):
But I think, you know, we deserve to, to be quite honest, because I think we identified avery outcome-based approach to education, which wasn't just about the CFA or wasn't just
about kind of providing financial knowledge which they could get from textbooks.

(06:43):
And it was really kind of saying, look, you know, this is a bag of tools that I promiseyou will help you be better at your job.
And so I've always seen education as something essentially that provides outcomes thatmakes people better at their careers.
And I think as long as you fit faithfully to that, you know, won't go far rocked.

(07:08):
Yeah, in China, the investment banking people see you as a guru of the investment.
Basically, you train the whole China banking research analysis team and their head.
Yeah, I mean that was particularly crazy and it was as I said a program that I was proudof you know and I'm not the greatest teacher by any stretch of the imagination but I knew

(07:37):
that we had something that was valuable and as a result then I think that it worked andobviously you did an amazing job in terms of telling people that they ought to go on the
course and then it just snowballed really to the extent that there was a waiting list.
You know, the transition isn't as remarkable as it might seem.
I had done quite a bit of teaching before in financial areas.

(07:58):
I enjoyed it.
It was great and it felt a very fulfilling kind of thing to be doing.
It was quite a rarity in the sense, and you alluded in your opening comment, that therearen't many people who go from banking to education.
But, again, I'm sure we'll go on and talk more about this around education and it's not...

(08:18):
so different to other businesses.
And sometimes I think that people seeing it as this kind of niche area kind of has aslightly different set of objectives around it, probably is a drag on a lot of education
companies or organizations or institutions, whatever you want to them.

(08:39):
Yeah, this is exactly why I want to get you on this podcast because so many people seeeducation as a very specific industry that is not a business.
But the way you run our Kaplan business or education business, there's no difference fromthe other business we can do.

(09:02):
But first I want to ask you how you grow this business.
Remember when you just
joined the capital in Hong Kong, we are very small.
In Hong Kong, we have a training center.
In Shanghai, me alone.
In Singapore, we have a decent training center.
But after 10 years, I think, you built capital Asia into an empire.

(09:28):
It's more than training center.
You actually literally grow it so big that it's very visible in all the...
higher education area, as well as the professional education.
Then you expand geographically, China, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and those paths weprogram to reach UK and the US.

(09:51):
That's kind of like a bridge between the East and the West.
So my question is, how are you actually strategically thinking of growing into such anempire?
When you take over a couple of Asia,
Do you have such a map in your mind or you just go along and develop your strategy?

(10:14):
you know, the straight and the easy answer to did I have this vision?
No.
Because they didn't know enough when I started, as I said to you before, you know, themajor motivation and the ambition around the initial point was really very much
professional education in order to make people better at their job.
And that was really the kind of start point.

(10:35):
But once you kind of start that process of flying that
across the board, then obviously you then start identifying kind of other opportunitiesthat are achieving the same things, maybe at a slightly younger age, but also in terms of
across other disciplines.
So think about where we started.

(10:57):
We started with essentially working adults who were doing training or education inconjunction with doing their jobs to become better at their job.
And then we evolved in terms of
kind of saying, in the context of that process, then there was a lot of people in Asia whohad diplomas and not degrees and therefore kind of the provision of overseas degrees,

(11:25):
essentially in the first instance to working adults.
was a natural extension of what we were doing.
So we acquired a small company in Singapore who was providing masters and undergraduatedegrees across a range of different disciplines, engineering, marketing, business, etc.

(11:46):
And that was the next stage.
And so what we then started doing is kind of getting good universities to partner with usin order to kind of offer their degrees offshore.
But again,
I really go back to what I said right at the get-go is that the objective was the same andthe point you allude to about education and business being in conflict.

(12:10):
I can honestly say for 20 years has never given me any issues at all because what you'reultimately doing is that you're successful if you provide great outcome for students and
those outcomes are measured by
their success in the workplace.
And that's not to say all education is in that area, but the only education that I've everdone is really around identifying outcomes and then providing the pathway to achieve those

(12:41):
outcomes.
And that's always been for me the strict criteria around the areas of education that Iwant to operate it.
That's not to say
You know, that there are other areas that fulfill another objective, but that's neversomething that I've felt confident enough to go into, if you like.

(13:05):
And so my view is that ultimately, if I drive that in order to be as successful aspossible, the two go hand in hand because I get great student outcomes and without great
student outcomes, I won't have a great business.
because ultimately it's no different than any other company.
If I don't have a great product, they don't have a great business.

(13:28):
You know, so if you try and shortchange and don't deliver outcomes, you will not have agreat education business.
I mean, it's as simple as that.
So you actually believe doing education business, you got to have help people to be betterat their job or be better at themselves.

(13:49):
They grow and you have outcome to demonstrate people.
It's like you have your brand and you have your reputation.
People know going through Kaplan, they can have better future than they come.
If you don't do a good job here, there's no business.
So that's basically your problem.
right.
But then also the other point I would say about education is that if you identify theoutcomes, then you put all the resources into achieving those outcomes.

(14:17):
You minimize any other costs associated with what's going on.
And one of the things that I always used to ask is that if you are spending money, you'vereally got to justify why that is improving student outcomes.
Because otherwise, why are you spending it?
If you're your investment banking thinking, right?

(14:39):
I mean, the other thing I would say in terms of this economics and education, etc.
is that...
Delivering great education with unlimited resources is actually not very difficult.
But when you're looking at combining a private for-profit company and great outcomes, thenof course you have to be really rigorous around each of the elements of that business

(15:10):
because the ability to be able to get great outcomes at a reasonable price is important.
And when I first started at Kaplan, as you know, there was an existing business doing ACCAand so on.
But a lot of people say, well, you we can't have class sizes of this, this and this, orover a certain size.

(15:32):
But then you've got to ask yourself, well, what are the students prepared to pay for thateducation experience?
And professional training, exam-based training is relatively cheap education.
It's actually cheaper to go on an ACCA program than it is to go to the cinema.

(15:53):
So that's the reality.
It's more expensive, at least in England, to go to the cinema than it is to go on an ACCAprogram per hour of education or per hour of time you're there.
So you've got to therefore say, well, if that's what people are prepared to pay and that'swhat they need to get to their end goal, then I'm afraid you can't have one-on-one tuition

(16:15):
and small class sizes and tutorials and so on.
People are prepared to pay
significantly more than going to the cinema, then of course you can do more, but you'vegot to match it against what the customer is prepared to pay.
You know, I'm doing quite a lot of work on the UK school side and I'm sure we'll go on tothat with say, Cranley China, but the lack of understanding in UK schools, private

(16:40):
schools, but their charities are not for profit.
There's a kind of bundled nature to large public institutions, universities.
exactly the same.
You kind of say there's almost this idea that in educational product, you're providingthis holistic education and so therefore it's not possible to quantify the cost of

(17:05):
delivery.
But you know, that's bananas.
You have to be able to quantify the cost of delivery.
So what I'm interested in any education is what is the revenue per contact hour and whatis the cost per contact hour?
And I bet you, if you ask most universities what the revenue per contact hour and the costper contact hour is, they wouldn't have a clue.

(17:32):
This is actually coming to my question.
I'm curious, the public education and private education.
How do you define private education?
For you, what's the biggest difference?
I think there's elements of them that are very similar and overlap.
There are many universities who have parts of their activity which are run pretty much onthe same basis as you'd run a private for-profit education business.

(18:00):
I've dealt with many Australian and UK universities delivering their programs in Singaporeor Hong Kong or wherever.
their attitude towards kind of why they're doing it is not dissimilar to mine.
You know, we had very successful partnerships with University of South Australia, withMurdoch University, with University College Dublin, to name a few, where the, of course,

(18:28):
again, wanting to deliver a great program and great outcome for students, but they weredoing it to make money.
That was their motivation.
So I think there are pockets.
There's a mindset.
difference.
Perhaps I'll draw a comparison with schools because it's a bit easier because universitiesI think have got additional complications because of their various functions, not just

(18:52):
educators but they've got research and so on of which I'm certainly no expert.
But with schools I suppose there's a mindset that
that is very different to my in the sense that the start point is, as I said to youearlier on, is that you're of effectively saying, how do we deliver great outcomes at a

(19:15):
reasonable price in order that everybody does okay out of it?
Whereas I think there's too many people in school leadership who have come purely from aneducation background who haven't necessarily
got the tools, got the experience, got the knowledge in order to be able to make thatconversion between and also kind of recognize that there is no conflict between making a

(19:41):
return and providing great education.
And certainly now, as I said a moment ago, where I'm quite heavily involved with a numberof UK schools, which have essentially been public, albeit their charities and so as a
result, they've never had a profit motivation.
And at times I feel like, I don't know, there's something almost wrong with me in thesense that the backlash against me talking about private for profit to the senior

(20:14):
leadership team is like such an alien concept.
And yet if I look at the schools, I guarantee you, if I took over the schools, I couldprovide the same education for 20 % less and I would still make
a nice return, guarantee you.
And it's a bit like you were saying about, came from a very different background and cameinto education.

(20:42):
A lot of people kind of find it very difficult when they do go into education from adifferent background and don't necessarily make that transition.
Equally, what I find is that the numbers of people who come from education
who are then capable of being good education managers or entrepreneurs is very small.

(21:06):
It's like the education is so inculcated in them that they can't really step back and kindof have a look at things from a broader perspective.
And I do think, I suspect it is an issue in universities, et cetera, where you getpromotion from within, where you've got good lecturers who become

(21:27):
deans and then are asked to kind of have a I suppose, commercial outlook on stuff, thenmaybe they don't have the kit that they need in order to be able to make that transition.
And certainly at Kaplan, was the biggest challenge I found was finding people who camethrough from an education, maybe a teaching background, and then could make the transition

(21:51):
to being a good commercial manager.
and equally the people who came in from a non-education background as in non-teachers.
tend to get a bit bullied by the academic staff and tend to, not that I mean bullied as inpunched and kicked and so on.

(22:13):
mean bullied in the sense that they're made to feel as though they don't understandeducation.
They don't understand it's not the same as another business.
And it was also one of the, I'd say one of the great things about when I came to FTC andthen what became Kaplan.

(22:35):
Because I had credibility as a teacher.
I don't think I'm an amazing teacher by any stretch of imagination, but I was popular.
So when teachers kind of gave me their gears about, you don't understand what it's like infront of a class.
I'd say actually I do understand what it's like in a class and I'm probably better at itthan you are.

(22:59):
So I think that was gave me a moral
high ground that a lot of management in education don't necessarily have.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Because as I put at the beginning, you do what you ask other people to do, especially onteacher part.
Remember in the past two years, you just fly to Shanghai every weekend, almost three daysintensive training.

(23:27):
And that was, we were young, but now when I look back, that's still a lot of work.
But, you know, I enjoyed it and we knew it was important to build the business.
Yeah, that's why I think you are your student or those working adults or those researchhead.
They just adore you because they can see you're trying to give everything you have tothem.

(23:53):
No hiding, nothing.
You always want to give them everything if they ask, right?
It relates a little bit around the difference between education.
Education becomes easier when you know that you have a set of students who you areteaching who have pretty much the same objective in being there.

(24:21):
there's a homogeneity about them, which means that you can bring them all together.
You know, education does become, and I totally accept, becomes more difficult when you'vegot a more dispersed set of people, because, and even at university, if you're teaching a
different particular discipline, the reality is you don't really know where those studentswant to go.

(24:46):
You haven't done those jobs that necessarily they want to go into.
So
it does become broader and therefore kind of less direct it's more difficult so i thinkthat again
how do you handle in Kaplan?
Because then you go into the much broader audience, your program covered way more people.

(25:08):
So how do you make sure the outcome is good?
Yes, it was broader in terms of the offerings, but there was still, we were selling, ifyou like, a specific offering where we knew that not necessarily as direct as kind of the
course I was running, but nevertheless still pretty direct in the sense that, you know,there was a mechanical engineering course.

(25:31):
And so as a result, you knew that the students on that program, A, they were payingthemselves.
That I think is quite important.
in the sense that they're writing checks to go on a program that needs kind of outcomes.
And so there's a tension around that directness of the customer and the student being thesame person.

(25:56):
And I think that again, when education gets more fluffy is, and certainly, you know, I seeit in the UK, is that the students are the customer, but the universities don't really
seem to feel they're the customer because they take out a student loan.
so it's not quite as direct.
as you'd want it to be.
And the students don't really know if they're a customer because they're not actuallyhaving to dip into their pocket and pay you some money.

(26:19):
So I love that directness that you get.
So back to your question, I mean, I'd still say that the programs we were running werevery directed to the needs of students, principally still working adults, very few young
at this stage.
And by young, I mean teenagers.
So that came later.

(26:42):
So I don't think it deviated massively, just the numbers of kind of avenues we wereproviding student options for got bigger and bigger.
And also the difference between doing professional training and particularly where there'sno qualification attached to it.
All you have is that you've given them something that's going to help them with their job.

(27:05):
Whereas as soon as you go into degree programs, then
The degree gives an element of comfort that they walk away with a degree and so how theyuse that degree in large parties down to them.
But still the same philosophy I think.
We put enormous effort into industry engagement on top of the degree.

(27:27):
We did a lot of those things which I think was an important element of our success.
It's more about career enhancement.
So whatever the adult professional training or high degree, your focus is to get thembetter at their job.
I'd say the difference between public universities and what we were doing is, of course Iaccept there's huge complications in the sense that they're multifaceted and

(27:53):
multi-objective in terms of what they're trying to achieve.
And maybe that in itself is a problem.
For me, there is a huge difference between the research motivations of universities andteaching first year undergraduates about business.
I guess that
There was always a philosophy that the research fed into the quality of the teaching andso on and so forth.

(28:18):
But the reality is that most undergraduate degrees, certainly up to the second year, Iguess, are pretty generic without being written.
I was a uni the other day, I was chatting to them and you know, the reality is, is thatsome of the textbooks they're using the same ones I used when I was at UCL in

(28:40):
1982
As you just clarified that for you the difference between public and private education, isespecially private for-profit education, the mindset differences are huge.

(29:01):
There is no conflict between outcome and profit making.
Also, for private education it seems that you have more freedom to choose what program tooffer.
what kind of audience you are going to draw into your program, more direct in terms ofKaplan's choice.

(29:23):
But you also have freedom which market to operate.
One question I always want to ask you, when you scale Kaplan business, choosing thecountries, right?
Why do you go to India and Vietnam?
I have so many Indian Vietnam students now.

(29:43):
That's a really good question and it's, you I look now at, enough, India has become quitehot in terms of transnational education, both schools and universities, but wasn't at the
time.
I think there's a variety of factors that are important.
Number one is the right time.
You can be right, but really early with these things.

(30:08):
And I've never really worried too much about
first mover advantage that we're the first ones in there so therefore we'll be successfulbecause you can be sitting there an awful long time waiting for something to happen.
Also first mover is sometimes challenging in the sense that you're not just kind ofselling yourself you're selling the concept behind your business as well so I see this

(30:36):
quite a bit in international schools actually whereby you're not just kind of selling
your version of it, you're actually kind of selling the concept behind it and that's avery expensive and long so I don't really worry too much about first mover.
The second thing for me and no particular order of importance is really deep knowledge.

(31:00):
Ultimately you succeed because you have deep knowledge of the market which you kind ofoperate or you put a team together who have a deep knowledge of the market.
operate and India was not a market I really felt that I knew much about and didn't havethe bandwidth, I guess, to find out more about it.

(31:22):
And I think a lot of international organizations, both in education and elsewhere, I knewwould have seen it in China.
It swept away by the size of the opportunity and don't really realize the complexity andthe deep knowledge you need in order to navigate your way through that.
So before we did the education, certainly by Western standards, I would have considered myknowledge of China to be quite high.

(31:51):
But I understood a lot about the culture.
understood a lot about the market and it was lucky that we started in the area where I hadgood knowledge anyway.
So I think that deep knowledge is absolutely crucial and you do see lots of problems.
And I would say in these countries, you know, the large ones, India, China.
People talk about, you know, kind of being a China expert, certainly kind of from abusiness point of view.

(32:15):
I think you have to be an expert in the city in which you're operating.
Now we've got three grandly schools, but they're in cities where we've operated for a longtime.
We know the city well, we have the network and connections in that city.
We have a deep knowledge of where development and wealth in that city is springing up.

(32:38):
The level is extraordinary.
You can't look at these large countries like China as a single opportunity.
You have to kind of drill down to provincial city and sometimes even a sub-district withinthe cities, present different opportunities.
So you could have exactly the same business doing exactly the same thing.

(33:00):
But without that kind of local knowledge, if you like, then you can have very, verydifferent outcomes.
The regulator environment is obviously very important.
mean, there was always an interesting distinction there was between Singapore and HongKong, which at faith value, you'd think are very similar, have very similar kind of

(33:21):
opportunities.
But the beauty of Singapore was that public universities only for less than 20 % ofstudents in Singapore.
So you have a highly educated population.
highly motivated population, but only 20 % get to go to a public university, which if youcompare that with, say, the UK and I think Australia, then it's more like 50 % will go to

(33:47):
university.
So you know that there's a kind of gap of a significant numbers of students who'd want toget to a university level or a degree level in terms of their academic attainment.
And yet there is no public provision because the Singapore government made a decision thatthey only really wanted
kind of tier one universities.

(34:07):
didn't want broad universities and you had the polytechnic system, which was thealternative.
what moreover in Singapore, what they said to the universities was that you cannotparticipate in kind of, I suppose, supplementary education.
They had to stick to what they were set up to do.

(34:27):
Basically research-based universities looking for kind of top hundred internationalrankings.
Now in Hong Kong, by contrast, the universities were given the opportunity to set upextension colleges in order to facilitate.
So someone like Hong Kong U set up Hong Kong U space.
And so as a result, as a private for profit operator, it made it much, much more difficultto encroach on that space against a public university that had a very big reputation.

(34:56):
So even if you weren't, if you like, in the main stream of that university at Hong Kong U.
A name association for say a 21 year old saying I'm a Hong Kong U, even if they're notdoing a Hong Kong U degree would be very significant.

(35:17):
Okay, that is first the local knowledge, very important.
And second, the regulatory and the local market demand.
So that's how you locate your market, where to operate.
I question for you.

(35:38):
After leaving Cap, you're working or running business for a multinational company, biglisted company is one thing.
You set up your own cranny China and your own business.
Now you become startup.
It's entrepreneurship.
I think before you already full of entrepreneurship, do all the things independently.

(36:03):
However, it's still different.
You use your own money this time.
to set up a company and do you find it's different?
What are the difficulties or challenges you have?
Perhaps the easiest way to compare is to describe the situation at Kaplan.
So Kaplan was a good halfway house in terms of moving from a large institution like HSBCwhere essentially you participate in the development of that but ultimately it's a huge

(36:38):
global bank and you're a cog in a wheel, you know, just of a varying size.
Kaplan was great in the sense that Kaplan, I suppose, two things.
First of all, regardless of success, it paid me a salary.
So that makes life a lot easier, you know, when you've got three young children inparticular.

(37:02):
But Kaplan also was great in the sense that because it was owned by the Washington PostCompany, it provided essentially the same as any fund.
I mean, it had a pot of
cash that it wanted to put to work in education and I came up with good ideas, then theywould make that cash available in order to invest in those ideas.
And particularly when Joss and Graer was running Kaplan was, I wouldn't say free and easy,but certainly kind of eager to put money to work in order to build a business.

(37:31):
And so as a result, that whole process was pretty smooth, actually.
Oddly enough on the education side, there were parts of Kaplan you'd learn from.
in terms of looking at the way they did things in other parts of the Kaplan business, theUS, et cetera.
I don't think that was massive.

(37:52):
It wasn't really huge.
The Asian business was very distinct and different, both in terms of activities that weengaged in.
So the only kind of thing that was common was really kind of that we were all ineducation.
Yes, it was helpful in some areas like maybe CFA and so on because of Schweizer, but Ithink we pretty much

(38:12):
set our own course.
so the distinction therefore, in terms of kind of shifting over from a Kaplan to a kind ofnon-Kaplan world was really about that pot of money.
Like any pot of money, you're really kind of making a risk reward assessment.

(38:34):
If it's not your money or any proportion of that is vested in those opportunities, then ofcourse the return you get out the end is
a smaller proportion.
If it's your own money, it's a bigger proportion and it's scarier because ultimately it'syour money.
So I don't think it changes things dramatically in the sense that if the underlyingbusiness is still successful, then really is just where you're drawing that money from.

(39:03):
Whether it's your own or whether it's a third party's or whether it's a company's, youstill apply the same duty of care.
You still apply the same kind of assessment, but it just obviously makes it much moretense and yeah, just it really just kind of, suppose, puts more tension around the whole
thing.
Ultimately, it doesn't change the way that you kind of do stuff and it's still anybusiness is a function of capital, where you get it from running that business and then

(39:35):
kind of rewarding people for doing a good job within it.
Do you ever get in a point that you were so under pressure that you thought, my God, thisis hard?
Yeah, obviously the China situation has been challenging for the last, suppose, sincepre-COVID or certainly kind of COVID.

(39:58):
COVID was obviously a factor.
Our businesses are essentially around Western education going into China and Chinastudents going to Western education in the UK or Australia or the US.
So, of course, COVID was
pretty desperate as far as that was concerned, along with a whole lot of other peopleinvolved in international education.

(40:24):
Right now, you know, the China story is not what it was just from an economic perspective.
Sometimes by luck, sometimes by judgment or a combination, you hit a wave which can takeyou through very nicely.
Now we're not on one of those waves in China.
The economic situation in China is more challenged than it's been probably.

(40:46):
I you're a whole adult life.
You know, it's not desperate, but it's not great.
great all my friends told me no no money
Exactly, it's challenging.
We continue to carry admissions up to where we want them to be, but it's more difficult.
And the expansion is more difficult because of government policies are less accommodatingthan they've been in the past.

(41:10):
When we set up Cranley China, the expectation was we would have multiple schools inmultiple cities.
We've got three, but you sometimes you have to adapt and change and there's alwaysopportunities.
And if you're providing something of value, and so as a result,
Now what we're seeing is a number of people who set up international schools didn't reallyknow what they were doing.

(41:34):
So we're looking at or we're beginning to see potential acquisition opportunities ratherthan kind of greenfield sites.
But it's one of the more challenging periods.
Of course, going back to your question, being in part of a larger organization is alwaysmore comfortable in challenging time.

(41:55):
You know, you are where you are and you just got to do what you can do in order to kind ofmove forward.
So does it give me sleepless nights?
No, no more than say when I was worried about results at Kaplan where there was setbacksas there always are in businesses.
For me, whether I'm using somebody else's money or my own money doesn't change my sense ofwanting to achieve and wanting to create great outcomes.

(42:19):
And I think it's important that anyone who's vested in a company
should have that mindset.
It's important.
You're a good manager.
We do the agency problem issue.
So the manager support must have private interest in a big firm.
But when you manage your own thing, you are more diligent.
You're more responsible.

(42:40):
But again, you and that's why when you build a company, for the people who you believehave the right mindset and skills to take that company forward, it's so important that you
vest them in that company as much as you can, really.
So everyone feels that same sense as if it was your own company.

(43:02):
I think it's impossible to create that unless you give people
some sense of ownership.
Now, it may not be actual shares, but it's kind of them recognizing that if the company'shad a good year that you surprise them on the upside with a bonus or you make sure that

(43:22):
you've got some kind of incentive plan in place such that they feel it's very easy tothink this is mine.
The danger with companies.
If you think about company success, company success is about
the brand, the name of the company, etc.
etc.
But also, you know, the kind of people who work within it and obviously then to extend it,it's a virtuous circle.

(43:47):
But when either of those get out of sync with each other, you have a problem.
So whenever the company thinks it's all about them and not about the individuals workingthere, you have a problem.
When the individuals think they're too powerful relative to the company, then you have aproblem.

(44:09):
It's a delicate balance of kind of making sure that people feel completely vested in theorganization, but equally that the company is giving them the respect that they deserve in
terms of where the value is coming from.
And I think that's such an important notion.
In investment banking, you often have the opposite problem whereby

(44:34):
You get so worried about losing your top rated analyst or banker or whatever that you'repaying the uneconomic sums of money.
But equally, if you undervalue them you'll lose the lot and then you've got nothing.
Yeah.
That's naturally coming to the question about your leadership style.

(44:56):
Since when you realize you can lead, you are a leader.
It was really not a conscious thing.
And as I said, it only really came to the fore when we kind of developed the Kaplanbusiness.
Because again, I would say in banking, it's a very different thing.
Even though I was in a senior position at HSBC and before that Paribas, then I wouldn'tconsider myself, do I have leadership quality?

(45:24):
I was good at what I was doing in a highly institutionalized organization where
your ability to do much in terms of kind of just grabbing opportunities was pretty smalland that's not a criticism of those organizations at all.
There's an important point I'd make here Jennifer, I think people have got differentskills in terms of what kind of institution best suits them and there's lots of

(45:55):
incredibly talented people who work in a large institution for their entire lives arehugely successful in those institutions and they like to operate in those institutions.
I would put myself in the category that I coped in those institutions rather than thrivedin those institutions.
I found it quite challenging.
You know, the politics, just the whole size of who was who and where was where, it was notsomething that I ever really felt.

(46:24):
100 % at ease with.
So within kind of leadership, I would say it really took off when we were building abusiness where we had the autonomy to do great things.
And I was very set that I had in my mind that we were going to grow that business and itwas going to be a great success.

(46:48):
As I said to you earlier on, complete honesty, I didn't
necessarily have a full roadmap as to why it was going to be or how it was going to be agreat success, but I knew it was going to be a great success.
And so I guess that number one in terms of it was leadership or my leadership and youknow, I've had no leadership training whatsoever in my whole life.

(47:09):
number one was that I always want to lead by example.
I wanted to have a passion for doing great things, not just kind of muddling through andnot just doing okay.
And I felt the FTC business that I took over was okay.
There was nothing wrong with it.
It was all worthy, but there was no pushing people and pushing yourself and pushing thewhole thing to higher levels.

(47:34):
So that was important, but ultimately I had to roll my sleeves up and wanted to roll mysleeves up to lead by example.
And I think that's really important.
And I think much as I enjoyed the teaching, some of doing the teaching was actually kindof showing that
I can do that just like you can.
Second was then identifying people who I felt had the same mindset and wanted to be onthat journey, who didn't go into education because it was a nice thing to do, went into

(48:03):
education, or maybe even if they had gone into it because it was a nice thing to do,quickly realized that it was also a great place to build a great business and that
therefore they had that same sense of striving for excellence, for striving for
new things, always thinking about additional things we could do on top of what we weredoing and so on.

(48:25):
And opening their eyes up to the fact that, you know, education tends to be very inwardlooking in terms of the way they do stuff.
Education has associations and clubs associated with it.
So I'll use the example again of schools, which as you know, I'm quite heavily involvedwith at the moment.

(48:47):
They have this Headmasters Association, so all these Headmasters get together and discussbest practice.
I would highly advise them.
If they want to go and look at best practice, go and look at another industry.
Why look at education?
Why look at what you're doing?
You know, because you're limiting yourself to the best in class, whereas the best may beso far outside class that you're not even thinking about it.

(49:15):
So that sense that people wanted to do great things and if they've got the right mindsetyou've then got to kind of reinforce and support that by incentivizing them in a way, just
money.
Money is important.
People have got mortgages to pay, education to pay for, etc.
etc.
So it has to be backed up by financial incentives.

(49:39):
But it's also a sense of feeling like you're on a journey that I'm quite excited about.
And I think that's also incredibly important.
And then on the flip side, it's then being pretty ruthless about people who don't reallywant to be on that journey and chopping them and because again, but you've got to mentally

(50:04):
kind of deal with it.
by saying if you are carrying people who are not performing what you are doing is thatyou're essentially stealing money from the rest of the people who are performing that's
what you're doing
Very good mentality to have for many people.

(50:25):
I still personally hate that part.
Yeah, and it's depressing and you- but you have to- The thing is, if you're not ruthlessabout it and make a clear differentiation between performance and non- I'm not talking
about people who are just bad.
Of course, that's easy.
I'm talking about people who just go through the motions.

(50:46):
They are okay.
There's nothing wrong with them.
But nevertheless, they don't- you'll never have.
And as soon as you allow people to see that that's okay,
It's very difficult then to keep motivation around the people who you want, who you knoware going to be the backbone of the business.

(51:07):
And so I think that for me, those things are really crucial.
think one of the things I always used to say at Kaplan is that it's much better funworking at a successful company than an unsuccessful company.
know, working at an unsuccessful company is a miserable experience.
Because you don't get pay rises, you don't get bonuses, you don't have nice Christmasparties, you don't get goodies from the boss every now and again.

(51:34):
You know, it's just no fun.
whereas if you're successful, which in large part is about working hard.
then it's much more fun because when you come to Chinese New Year or the end of thefinancial year
So you still have big parties now in your Ukraine and China?

(51:59):
They do in China, but I'm not there very often.
as you know, that was an important part of what we did because we'd done well.
kind of then said, right, everyone comes together for a nice event.
And, you know, people talk about that in your competitors, that they've had a modest kindof event and you've had a good event.
Yeah, any part is very important.

(52:21):
So getting that balance right, I think is very important, but empowering people is backingpeople and also a clear sense of direction.
You don't fiddle around once you've thought something through and you say, yeah, we'regoing to do that.
You get on and do it.
And, know, that's not to say that you're to be a hundred percent successful and you neverwill be.

(52:41):
But, is that you want to avoid disasters.
And the reality is that if you avoid disasters, and you have more winners than losers,then you're doing best, better than most people.
Yeah, I remember you always told me, Jennifer, try the best.
If you tried best, you didn't work out.

(53:02):
Okay, the business, the model doesn't work.
Or we know there's a marketing issue.
It's not your issue.
If you don't try your best, and then it doesn't work.
We don't know where the issue is.
So that is, yeah, I learned.
always drive people to their nuts to try your best.

(53:24):
Now, as you are experts in education, both high school education, university education andprofessional education, cross-sector in education, I will ask you naturally, with the
technology, artificial intelligence, chat GPT, deep seek, all those things are happeningso fast.

(53:50):
How do you see the education develop?
in next five to 10 years.
It's interesting, I look, this is a vast topic and so I'll talk to things that I feel Ihave some knowledge of and that are concerned that are thinking about at the moment.
One of the great mysteries to me is, I think education up until now.

(54:15):
The use of technology is unbelievably low.
Technology has touched education compared to almost any other thing, hardly at all.
Of course, there's Zooms and online lectures and so on and so forth.
But you think about the technology revolution that we've had over the last 20, 30 years.

(54:41):
I would say that
portion of education that is still traditional is unbelievably high and I don't know whythat is
just jumping my son still doing the maths using the calculator.
I would just say doing a modeling calculation by Excel.
You know, I think it is extraordinary how technology has, I think, a very small part inmainstream education up to now.

(55:10):
But I guess the bigger theme, and as I said, I'll keep it to kind of the area that I'mcurrently kind of engaged in, is that ultimately knowledge is going through a process
where it gets less and less important because it's accessible, it's easy and so

(55:31):
So what I think is that we're moving into a world where everything that I've talked aboutand that I think is important around education, i.e.
outcomes and attributes, needs to become front and centre of all of education.
When you think about curriculum,

(55:54):
I think there has been developments such that when people write curriculums they then saywhat are the learning outcomes, what are the set of attributes.
But you still start from knowledge and then kind of move to kind of well what else or howdoes this help you.
Whereas, certainly with school's education I'm looking out right now.

(56:20):
Look at the curriculum in the UK and it's pretty similar elsewhere.
know, everything starts from subjects.
You study nine subjects.
History, geography, math, physics, whatever.
Doesn't matter.
Whereas for me, everything should now move to a world where you start with what are theskills and attributes that you want someone to graduate from this institution with.

(56:57):
And then, actual subject matter that you use in order to develop those attributes, kind ofdoesn't matter.
Can you give an example, like attributes?
Yeah, they're what I mean by attributes, analytical skills, communication skills, maths isdifferent, mean arithmetic skills obviously.

(57:20):
But you think about, if you're a student, you're studying history at high school.
What are you really kind of demonstrating by studying history that an AI world or evenactually a free AI world couldn't tell you?
Virtually nothing.

(57:42):
So for me what you're really doing is saying why are you studying?
And the reason you're studying it is you're really kind of saying can I take a large bodyof information?
comprehend, assimilate and then disseminate that information.
That's really all you're doing.

(58:03):
And it doesn't matter whether it's geography, history, philosophy, biology, it's all thesame.
You you should get an A star in communication and dissemination or you should get an Astar in analytical skills.
So everything needs to be turned upside down such that you are testing people on

(58:26):
a set of attributes which are widely recognized as important for success.
Teamwork, communication skills, analytical skills.
And sitting outside that for me is kind of math, technology, et cetera, whichever, youknow, have become essentially the reading, writing kind of must haves for any young person

(58:50):
I would consider.
But the rest of it, when you think about it,
In today's world, is it any more important to study history?
Don't get me wrong here, you know, you might think it's important as a kind of culturalawareness, not for a job, not for your future, but just to be a good citizen.

(59:12):
That's a different set of tests and that's okay.
I'm all right with that.
No problem.
So is it important that Australians have a good understanding of the Aboriginalbackground?
I guess it probably is, but I ain't going to help them kind of get a job.
It isn't going to help in their career, but it makes them a better citizen.
So you almost need to make a distinction between those things that are.

(59:34):
Driving you towards a kind of happy or career or life and those that are useful becausesociety is benefits from kind of other stuff and no expert on other stuff.
But if I think about it from my outcomes perspective, there needs to be a complete shift.
So even in universities, you need to kind of have

(59:56):
A system that says
Right.
This is what these careers require by way of skills and attributes and therefore we builda curriculum around developing those skills and attributes.
We don't just give a body of knowledge and then leave people with this tool bag.

(01:00:20):
It's like giving a plumber a bag of tools and he's got a spanner in there and he's gotwhatever else they've got in there.
But you haven't actually told them what
Deal with him?
You think just use this to teach them actually how to do things.
Yeah, all the technology developments mean that the value-add portion of education justgets narrower and narrower and narrower, so knowledge is less important.

(01:00:51):
Yeah, chat GPT is like a tool, right?
To your point.
We need to teach or we need to guide students in the future education.
You have such a wonderful tools, but how you use those tools to build up yourself.
Exactly, it's grasping all of those things and kind of saying, right, in a bit like anysituation, what are the bits you don't need to now worry about because technology has

(01:01:18):
taken care of it?
What's the bit left for you?
But how do you manage that technology?
How do you manage that full bag?
Which takes us right back to the start of our conversation around, course, in China wasthat I knew exactly what
they needed to do.
And so I armed them with a tool bag, but also how to use that tool bag.

(01:01:42):
And I think too much education is about kind of putting together a tool bag, which numberone, quite often those tools can be dealt with by technology any way.
But it's then managing it and kind of saying, you know, but that that's very hard.
And I tell you why it's hard.

(01:02:04):
Number one, is there enough knowledge in education?
i.e.
are there too many people teaching an education who can put together a tool bag but havenever actually had to use it?
the answer is yes
So that's big problem number one.

(01:02:26):
Big problem number two is the assessment process.
And again, I would go to what I'm seeing in schools right now is that the assessmentprocess in schools in the UK with A levels and O levels and more or less the same as when
I did.
I would think so.

(01:02:46):
Never changed.
Yeah, but why do we stick with it?
We stick with it because the structure in the system is geared up to that.
So therefore it's very difficult to kind of change from a knowledge-based system.
And currently we run a knowledge-based system.
So you have to change that.
Otherwise, I just think you're letting down young people in terms of equipping them forthe next stages of their lives.

(01:03:11):
And you know, lots of...
Institutions do wraparounds and say we've got this and this and this but it should be atthe absolute core.
Shouldn't be the wraparound, it should be the absolute kind of core of the whole thing.
The second thing is the system is cheap.
Standardized testing is cheap.

(01:03:32):
So you can do it at scale at a reasonable price.
Whereas assessing on the basis of
skills and attributes is a much much more difficult thing to do.
Hmm, that's a good point.
So changing education system.

(01:03:52):
You know, it's interesting, like in China, obviously, one of the reasons for theopportunities that presented themselves in China many years ago, and still to a certain
extent, albeit less, was really an education system that wasn't fit for purpose.

(01:04:13):
very extreme knowledge-based total disconnect between education and careers and jobs.
So that was an important part of the opportunity.
And obviously on top of that, the standard of education, I think once you dropped outsidelike tier one, then I think that there was no depth to the education system such that for

(01:04:36):
students who couldn't go to tier one universities, then the education experience becamepretty awful.
So that was what 20 odd years ago and there's a lot to talk about.
And I think Chinese universities have got better, certainly kind of looking in fromwithout detailed analysis.
But the reality is that what we're providing is something better, I think.

(01:05:00):
But I don't think necessarily Western countries have got education system completelynailed down in terms of how they feel they're equipping students.
to move on to the next stage of their education.
No, I think in the age of AI, all the Western and Chinese education system have facingchallenge now.

(01:05:24):
Definitely.
Because in my university, we don't have exam anymore.
It's all assignment, even for the final assessment.
When I mark, I feel like I'm marking a machine writing report.
It's just so generic.
You know, it's done by chat GPT.
small size of the students can present very good reports.

(01:05:47):
And I can see they use their own brain.
I sometimes think if we don't change, the university education may lose value completely.
People just use AI to give you an okay report.
But the thing is, Jennifer, that then they get found out because they write, you know,they can put a great answer together on chat GBT.

(01:06:13):
and then they go for an interview and they get asked a series of questions and the qualityof their answer in a real life situation is there's no resemblance to something they've
submitted.
Bet you if you have small tutorials with your students.
you quickly find out those who actually know their stuff as opposed to those who have bungit in chat GBT in terms of just asking them to communicate orally what you can quickly

(01:06:39):
ascertain the kind of depth their knowledge, the quality of their analysis andconsideration and the confidence of their conclusion.
Yeah, I think that's why you said the assessment actually become more difficult if youreally want to assess the people.
How do they know?
By talking and communicate.
It's a huge thing.

(01:07:00):
I think before universities and other education institutions go back, fear GBT, the AIphenomena, which is only going to get more and more and more, course, then it's really
around how you embrace it as opposed to how you mean the danger is that you kind of say,right, we go back to three hour exams under invigilation.

(01:07:25):
But it looks like now.
The trouble is, that what does that prove?
That's not embracing and enhancing and thinking how do we make things better.
That's just stopping something that's unfunded.
Actually, we should be able to be better than the previous version of ourselves because webetter tools.

(01:07:47):
So I'm looking forward in your school, your students will be different.
With you sitting there making the program, make sure there is outcome attribute attachedto
But again, it's how do you do things?
One of the challenges of working within education is that quite unregulated environment tooperate and therefore you have to be quite careful to get that right balance because

(01:08:10):
ultimately the system still requires students go through a standardized set of tests thatkind of prove not a lot.
As a result, you have to be really careful because you can't say to a parent or a student,look,
They may have terrible test results, but my god, they're a great student.

(01:08:32):
What I would say is that the expectations are tight for going up.
I mean, I've got, as you know, sons now and it's a tough world for young people actuallyin terms of, on the one hand, there's probably more opportunities than there's ever been,
but at the same time, it's pretty competitive and quite challenging.

(01:08:56):
Since you're talking about your son, let me ask you about some personal questions becauseyou're busy, you always travel around.
And I'm actually want to ask you, where do you feel more home?
China or UK or Hong Kong?
You lived in Hong Kong for how many years?
Oh my goodness, I was in Hong Kong for over 20 years.

(01:09:21):
I feel really at home now in the UK.
I enjoy being here.
It's nice to see my sons more often, although my eldest is in Hong Kong, so I don't seehim very much.
You know, and that's not to say I don't miss parts of Hong Kong and China and I do getback to China every now and again, but mainly here.
A lot of that's been disrupted by obviously Covid.

(01:09:44):
so I would say largely now the UK, I do need to get back to China.
I can't imagine Mark is not traveling.
It's weird.
mean, you get very used to it and it becomes such a normal part.
It's how, it's what you think is your life.
And then that break with COVID, where obviously travel was largely either disallowed orwas just too difficult for quite a long time, know, really two, three years for China.

(01:10:12):
It's funny, you kind of get not used to it and then...
it becomes less appealing.
It's not like I think, my God, great, now I can...
It's almost so, for me at least, it kind of broke that routine.
So now it all feels quite hard and quite difficult and not part of my normal routine.

(01:10:33):
And it's odd because I've spoken to a lot of people who feel the same.
I'm sure if I got back into it, then it would be different.
But, you know, we're looking at...
Quite a lot of opportunities in the UK right now, so that's keeping me reasonably busy.
There's a lot of very good schools who need some assistance.

(01:10:53):
So your project now is back home in the UK.
Yeah, and it's people at the moment in the UK are very worried about and there's lots ofthings being written about.
The new government has destroyed private education.
But the reality is it hasn't at all.
You know, private education has been badly run for many, years and it's been facilitatedby the fact that the fees have just gone up and up and up and up.

(01:11:20):
Absolutely the critical point and private education needs to, like any other
business needs to have a good look at itself and kind of say, it's not about just doingmore and more, it's about making sure we're doing or providing great outcomes for students
and really making sure that you're equipping young people with a set of skills andattributes they need to move on to the next part of their lives.

(01:11:50):
I don't think it's very difficult to do that.
And I think that it's all about being absolutely ruthless around identifying what thoseskills and attributes are.
And then making sure that every pound that you put into that business is about making surethat you achieve those attributes.

(01:12:10):
And I look at a lot of schools in the UK, you know, and they're fat lazy and it's just notright.
I lot of my
friends in schools by saying that, but it's true.
It's bananas.
A lot of the things are just crazy in terms of just building more of this, building moreof this.
And I think to an extent you could say the same about the university sector in the UK aswell, where you don't produce great outcomes by just building new snazzy buildings.

(01:12:41):
I wrote an article actually, you should read it, it's called Darkness Before Dawn.
It's a kind of the take on where I see opportunities and where I see change required inthe UK private school area.
You have three sons.

(01:13:02):
How did you educate your son?
One of them is an athlete and even represents Hong Kong for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
So we were so excited.
How did you do that?
You were so busy.
I remember when they grow up in Hong Kong, you were just traveling everywhere.
How did you educate your kids?

(01:13:24):
look, I mean, think that Oscar, my eldest, he's got the physical attributes in order to doit, but he's incredibly tenacious and incredibly organized and incredibly driven in terms
of what he wanted to achieve.
And it's fantastic to see not just his achievements in getting to the Olympics, which isincredible, but also kind of seeing in him, but a set of attributes that are valuable in

(01:13:48):
whatever walk of life he chooses and how
He gathered those.
I mean, if I take any small part, then I'd be happy to do so.
It's very easy to identify what those are.
If you're doing something like triathlon and also, you he is a student at Hong Kong U aswell.

(01:14:08):
It requires all of those skills.
It requires dedication, but it also requires rigorous organization skills that if he wentto work for McKinsey's, they would be as valuable to McKinsey's as they are to the Hong
Kong
Olympic team, you know, it's those things.

(01:14:28):
things influenced him become like that.
Most of us know we want that.
But we are curious, how did you get your son to get those things?
It's not so dissimilar to the things we were talking about earlier on, Jennifer, aboutleadership and what makes someone those kinds of things.

(01:14:50):
It's all the same types of things.
What motivated you to kind of, I'll turn it around and talk a bit about you for a second.
You know, when I first arrived at FTC, as it was at that point in time, you obviously abright, smart person, limited work experience, certainly didn't know much about kind of
what you were doing.
And that I could see that you were obviously wanting to do well, but really didn't knowhow to do so.

(01:15:15):
And then all of a sudden, once we had a direction and once you had a goal and once youknew you could do it, everything changes.
And I think that's also important in terms of the example of Oscar.
I'd make the same point about Louis, my second son, who went to a famous school in the UK.

(01:15:36):
Didn't go to university.
He's now got this.
22 years old, he's got a landscape gardening business, he's doing unbelievably well.
But those attributes then start slotting into place because again, he has a goal and he'smotivated by doing something great, which means that he has to be organized, he has to be

(01:16:00):
a good communicator, he has to kind of be a good team guy.
He's learning as he goes, but he's got a goal that makes him realize
that some of the things that maybe I've told him about in the past do matter and so on andso forth.
I think everybody has it in them to do these things.
It's just the education system, Jennifer, does not promote these things as critical.

(01:16:25):
They promote them increasingly and better than in the old days as something that kind ofnice to have, you know, they're of, they're peripheral to the core syllabus, if you like.
They're not.
They're absolutely kind of essential.
And why does the education system do that?
Because in some ways the whole education system was built around knowledge.

(01:16:49):
And so as a result, of course, that's their strength.
That's what it was all built around.
So until you turn it upside down, so would I attribute Oscar going back to him?
I think my influence to a certain extent, his coach is unbelievably
supportive and well driven and also did huge education around scheduling and so on and soforth.

(01:17:15):
But ultimately then Oscar takes ownership of everything and again his knowledge is builtaround almost like a top-down approach because he knows he wants to run faster say he
researches how he runs faster he measures everything he either you get your goal and thenyou kind of

(01:17:36):
build up the skills and knowledge that you need in order to kind of achieve that goal.
It's excellent.
We saw them talk about yourself, but I still remember three of the boys went to Joycewedding, dressed up in Chinese dress.
Are there three little uniforms?
I know.
Just like yesterday.

(01:18:02):
Now final session, three insights out.
First about success.
You had an incredible success career.
Many people admire you.
If you go back and look at your 20 years old younger self, would you give him a piece ofadvice?
What will be that?

(01:18:24):
I mean, I can't give a piece.
I mean, I'd give lot.
The thing that I think is most important, and I think about this a lot actually in thecontext of my sons as well as in education, is that
The system again, I keep saying what's so bad about the system, you know, there's lotsgood about the system, but one of the bad things about the system is that everyone's life

(01:18:48):
is chunked up into kind of predetermined 18 you finish school, 21, 22 you finishuniversity.
That's the end of education.
Then you go and get a job.
But the reality is that
2021, you're kind of effectively, let's say just graduating from university or final yearof university, whatever.

(01:19:11):
You know, you're on a journey shifting from classroom education to life education.
So you just can't see life as this kind of school university work.
Society does that, but reality is hugely different.

(01:19:31):
So my advice always to young people starting off, let's say, in the workplace is thatyou're really asking yourself every six months, every year, a couple of questions.
Am I better off now than I was six months ago?
In terms of career prospects, money, you know, whatever.

(01:19:53):
And as long as you are, keep going forward.
If you feel you're stuck, you have to make a change.
And that was never set up for me, but when I think about my life, it's essentially what Idid.
I did things and then kind of thought, yeah, no, I'm progressing, I'm progressing.

(01:20:13):
And then you get to a point where you think, no, I'm not progressing.
I'm actually kind of stuck.
And then you have to move on.
You have to then make change.
Because if you allow yourself to be stuck for any length of time,
life becomes really difficult to become undone.

(01:20:35):
Great, so device.
So for me, you don't need the journey.
You can break it up into bite-size, manageable pieces.
am I more knowledgeable?
Have I got more money?
Have I kind of got promoted?
Yes, great.
Stick with what I'm doing.
I'm okay with that.
And don't worry too much around what's on the track.

(01:20:58):
Deal with reality.
Good.
So that is my word of advice.
I love it.
Regularly check and reflect to ensure steady progress.
Second, you are the richest person in my life, I ever say.
So I want your advice to people.

(01:21:19):
How can they become wealthy or rich?
What do they do?
What's your secret?
I think with all of these things in terms of wealth as a measure of what I mean the thingis if your motivation is purely wealth I think that in itself is not necessarily the best
thing I think that wealth is a derivative of success you can discount you can excludeyourself from wealth by doing various things you can exclude yourself by picking a career

(01:21:52):
and a job that just doesn't reward
in a way that can make you wealthy.
But let's assume you don't do that because otherwise you can't be and that's not a badthing at all.
What is it that's then driving it?
I would say ultimately Jennifer that if you are in a world in which you can be rewarded,whether it's using your own money to start a business or whether it's kind of just being

(01:22:19):
well paid as an executive at HSBC or whatever makes no odds.
Ultimately,
If you do a great job and you do great things, the wealth will look after itself and thenit's just a function of whether you blow it.
know, wealth is a derivative.
Okay, last one.
What do you hope your own legacy will be?

(01:22:41):
How do you want to be remembered?
Ultimately, for me the most important thing is really to be remembered by my three sonsactually in terms of providing attributes and you know young people should draw upon a
whole host of different influences hopefully mainly good.

(01:23:02):
A set of attributes that hopefully kind of guides them in a way that makes them happy,successful but decent people as well.
You know, that matters a lot to me.
At the moment I'm proud to say that the deal like that and I hope that that continues, butthat matters to me the most.

(01:23:25):
Thank you so much, Mark.
It has been so fascinating talking to you always.
I hope there's a few bits and bobs that are of use to somebody.
In this way, I will share with all our friends.
To our listeners, thank you for joining in.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow Mark on LinkedIn for more of his insights.

(01:23:51):
To close, I would like to share a special song I wrote for Mark.
He likes jazz.
This song is dedicated to his journey from central to the club.

(01:24:35):
Board on the top, turn to schoolyard plans No more charts, but guiding hands Not justfigures, not just games But mindset free beyond the chains
you

(01:25:15):
So he walked away left the city's wrong
Great, it starts the future's worth much more From central's banks to the classroom doorBuilding dreams, shaping lives, and so much more For the lessons go beyond the train A
leader's mark will never fade From the markets to the mighty lists Knowledge, courage, thegreatest gifts

(01:25:43):
you