Higher Education at Lower Cost.

Stephen is Chairman of the Shaw Board and oversees corporate governance for the Shaw Group. Stephen is formerly CEO of Virgin Group having directly succeeded Founder, Sir Richard Branson in 2005. Stephen stood down at the end of 2011 to pursue a career as a plural Non-Executive Director and Investor.

Currently, Stephen also chairs Ovo Energy Group, a major new UK utility supplier, GYG plc, an AIM listed specialist service provider to the super-yacht industry and London & Capital Ltd, a large wealth management company in the UK.

Sean has been a tech entrepreneur since 2000. Founder and former CEO of Debtdomain (www.debtdomain.com), a B2B SaaS global platform for syndicated loans. Sean directed the successful sale of Debtdomain to KKR in 2013 and it subsequently went public when it was acquired by IHS Markit in 2018 as part of the Ipreo acquisition. Sean’s investment portfolio includes Edutech, SaaS and Fintech businesses including Shaw Academy, Marco Polo Learning, Alterest, Credit Digital, Koyo Loans and Chaser Technologies. Sean is an LP and Advisor to Fuel Ventures and LP to Frontline Ventures.

John is a consultant/non-Executive director to a number of early stage EdTech businesses and a former CEO of Folens Publishers, the market leader in Irish schools educational publishing. Since its foundation in 1958, Folens have been at the forefront of innovation in educational publishing in Ireland. John is also a founding member of Leaf Investments, the Folens investment vehicle who have gained a proven track record of investment in early stage education technology businesses. Over the last decade, Leaf has invested in a wide variety of verticals within the e-learning space including EmpowertheUser, a revolutionary behaviour-based talent platform and Immerse, a market leading Corporate Training Virtual Reality platform.

James founded Shaw Academy in 2012 and set out to revolutionise education and digitise the classroom. By constantly innovating Shaw Academy was able to offer a high-quality product that is interactive, affordable and accessible. James has led and evolved the business from its early start-up phase right through to its current status as a fully funded high performing Ed Tech. He has been at the forefront of launching Shaw Academy’s proprietary learning platform Phoenix and AI Tool – Morpheus along with overseeing the marketing, partnership and revenue generation functions across the organisation. As CEO James leads the business across three locations; Dublin, Bangalore & Cape Town.

James holds a Bachelor in Civil Law & Masters in Commercial Law from University College Dublin.

John joined Shaw Academy in 2015 and was a key figure in building the strategic partnerships strategy of the business. He has created global relationships with major brands and in particular launched Shaw Academy and education into brand consumer engagement programmes worldwide which traditionally had been dominated by music and entertainment operators.

John currently oversees the entire strategic programme at the company including B2C, B2B and public tendering initiatives. He holds a Masters in Media from Dublin Institute of Technology.

Michael is an Irish based entrepreneur with experience founding and managing rapidly growing businesses within the telecommunications and media industry. Michael co-founded Setanta Sports in 1992 and built it into a worldwide sports broadcaster with operations in the USA, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Asia, Africa and Australia. Following a restructure in 2009 Michael acquired the non-UK business of Setanta Sports Group and currently is CEO of Setanta Sports Broadcasting Limited broadcasting through the following channels: FreeSports, Premier Sports and Setanta Sports Eurasia.

David is the Co-Founder of Oxford International Education Group, one of the UK’s largest private Education companies. Having spent 25 years as joint CEO & Founder, David now serves as Group President of the business which generated in excess of £90 million in 2018.

Neil Balnaves is an Australian based investor/philanthropist with extensive experience in the global media industry having held Managing Director and Executive Director positions at Hanna Barbara Australia, Southern Star Group and Southern Cross Broadcasting and is regarded as one of the leading entertainment executives in Australia. Neil has also held numerous high-level advisory positions in both Universities and Research Institutes. In 2006, Neil established The Balnaves Foundation and in 2010 Neil was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to business and philanthropy.