Martin Beeche is an entrepreneur seeking to improve the way children access and experience education around the world. He was born and raised in New Zealand and went on to have a successful global career in investment banking for 14 years, where he built a number of businesses within Credit Suisse. He worked in their Sydney and Wellington offices and then as a managing director in London.that. Since leaving Credit Suisse in 2006, Martin has invested in early stage businesses, and advised on strategy, growth and raising capital for SMEs. In 2010, Martin became a managing director with Nomura where he helped expand their business in Europe. He spent 2012 at London Business School on the MSc Sloan Fellowship programme in Leadership and Strategy, where he graduated with Distinction (the highest honours). In 2014, Martin co-founded Prosper Education with the belief that all children have the right to an education that is academically rigorous yet very supportive and fun and develops critical 21st century skills. Combining the best thinking and proven research in neuroscience and behavioural science with world leading game designers and educators, he has led the creation of RoyalABC, a world class British English ELT and 21st century skills programme for early learners, including RoyalABC World, an engaging virtual 3D language learning world. RoyalABC is the first platform to deliver the resilience building ideology of Growth Mindset into China. Martin is one of the founding board members of EduGrowth, a national not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting and promoting the international education sector in Australia.

Ms Million So is a proven visionary and strategic leader who translates educational strategies into maximum profits commensurate with the best interest of shareholders, parents, employees and, most of all, the children. Million has done business in Singapore, New Zealand and the Middle East and is familiar with franchising, mergers and acquisitions as well as the IPO process. Experienced in doing business in China, she has a proven track record of improving academic standards and achieving targets in the Chinese early childhood and international school arena. Million has provided training and consultancy services to educational organisations that cater to children as young as 18 months to 18 years of age. She is also an established music composer with Warner and Universal Music. To date, hundreds of thousands of students have gone through her E-Broadcast and E-Music programmemes.

I’m excited to be here! I’ve been involved in educational technology for over 20 years (not including my own schooling!) and am a true believer in the gift of education for improving the lives of children globally. One of the things I’m most grateful for in my life is all the little challenges and opportunities that have presented themselves along the way. The Growth Mindset is basically what I’m all about, there is no such thing as failure, only learning! I’ve enjoyed the crazy ride with my husband and four teenage boys, living not only in Australia, but the UK, USA and France, and travelling through the Americas, Middle East (the Dead Sea stings!) Europe and NZ. I still call Australia home, and am lucky enough to live on the beach. I am a passionate water baby, and like doing crazy outdoor activities (surfboat rowing) and camping. My current challenge is learning Mandarin, which is hard (and I’m pretty sure I sound like a crazy person in the car while I’m practicing).

Yvonne Dagan started out her commercial life as an MA Honours English and Philosophy and PGDip Information Technology graduate working as a senior manager in telecommunications. After eight years, her passion for teaching, training and coaching inspired her to retrain and enter the teaching profession. Yvonne now travels around the world, managing and delivering educational teacher training programmes and testing and examining learners. As a Delta (2012) accredited University of Cambridge CELTA and TKT Trainer, Yvonne is passionate about training pre-service and in-service teachers across kindergarten, primary, secondary and adult learning. She is currently completing her training to become one of only 40 University of Cambridge ICELT Trainers worldwide and has worked for three years in CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) in state high schools in Spain. Yvonne travels extensively to examine both young and adult learners against the Common European Framework for globally renowned International Examination Boards. Yvonne’s travels, training and testing take her all over the world, including Spain, Italy, UK, Brazil, China and Australia and give her valuable contact with young, teen and adult learners from 0 Basic right up to C2 Proficiency CEFR level learners.

David Hill is an international ELT consultant and coursebook author, whose career has spanned nearly two and a half decades and involved learners of all ages. He has held a number of teaching and education management positions including Director of Studies, and his TESOL-related qualifications include an MA in Applied Linguistics. He is a well-respected curriculum writer, regularly engaged through, among other clients, major international ELT quality assurance organisations and peak bodies. Other projects have included writing teacher training courses, advising universities on ELT assessment, and writing and/or examining for major international ELT exams such as IELTS and the Pearson Tests of English. He has helped a number of English language college start-ups with curriculum, policies, management structures and so on, and also assists established colleges in refining their offering. Books he has worked on, such as EAP Now!, have influenced teaching and syllabus design around the world, and have helped an estimated million plus learners. He has also been a speaker, often invited, at ELT conferences such as BALEAP and IATEFL in the UK and NEAS in Australia. RoyalABC provides the perfect forum for his long-held passions for taking a cross-disciplinary approach to English language learning and for building intercultural understanding.

Caroline Thornton has extensive international experience in psychology, education, language development and blended learning. She holds an MA (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, one of the world’s top 20 universities, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (International) from the University of Nottingham, a TESOL and is a New South Wales (Australia) accredited teacher. Caroline has taught, and trained teachers in a range of international, public and private schools around the world. She co-developed an Intensive English programme at a prestigious private primary school in Thailand, in line with Cambridge and Oxford English courses for young learners. Caroline’s passion lies in making learning accessible and fun for all students. With an understanding of human development and well-being, Caroline aims to create positive and engaging learning experiences that encourage students to express themselves with confidence and develop to their full potential.

Dr Polly McGee is an author, academic, entrepreneur educator and digital strategist. Polly was a lead designer in the University of Tasmania’s MBA and Undergraduate innovation degree programme and is a prolific writer on entrepreneurship education, digital strategy and small business. She has contributed to a range of business and digital publications for private enterprise, not-for-profit and government clients and created a suite of digital and video content for government. She has managed multimillion dollar innovation grants programmes and worked with hundreds of start-ups to refine their business ideas and source funding. As co-founder of Start-up Tasmania, she was voted one of the most influential people in Australian Start-ups, and continues to coach and advise entrepreneurs. Polly is strongly committed to education and growth mindset especially in the early learning space as the ideal time to grow children’s minds and build lifelong capacity. Her second book ‘The Good Hustle’, a handbook for social entrepreneurs, is coming out globally through Murdoch Press in February 2018.

Betty Ye has extensive international experiences in consumer marketing. She holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia. Having worked with brands including, but not limited to, Evian, Volvic and Hotwheels Cars, her experiences in both the North American and Asian markets enables her to leverage best practices and insights for the development of effective brand strategies and building best-in-class consumer campaigns. Betty is a true believer that quality education can make positive changes to the lives of children around the world.

She currently resides in Shanghai with her daughter Ysabel and a cute lab-collie mix, Bella. Her passion is to travel the world with her daughter, as she believes in the old Chinese saying: ‘It is better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books.’

James Guan has a career defined by identifying and implementing sector wide innovations over twenty years of experience across various industries. His significant achievements include delivering large and complex technology development programs across the Telecommunications, Defense, Manufacturing and IT Industries in China and Asia. As VP of Technology and Chief Technology Officer for Pearson Education Greater China, he migrated the business successfully to both Public and Private Cloud Services inside China and enabled a personalisable, intuitive, adaptive and data driven digital-product technology foundation by building up strategic partnerships with other education service providers in China.

At Atos he similarly applied his successful leadership as head of four solution teams: Nuclear Power Solutions, SAP ERP System Solutions, Industry 4.0 Solutions, Application Development and Support Services. This division generated a significant uplift of business growth with healthy profitability. As the CTO of Prosper, James’ aspiration is to continue his exceptional career in education with a focus on harnessing the best technology to create beautiful products with measurable improvements on teaching and learning effectiveness to children globally. James has a MBA from Melbourne University and Engineering degree (Honors) in Mechatronics.

Dominic Richards is a community-focused place-maker who believes entrepreneurship should be a force for improving the quality of people’s lives. Dominic was raised in Australia and England and educated at the University of Cambridge and the Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture. Motivated to better equip our next generation to embrace the opportunities of the future, Dominic sought to create a stimulating learning environment through leveraging cutting-edge technology platforms with time-honoured educational foundations. He is realising this pursuit as the Chairman and co-founder of Prosper Education Ltd, a Chinese digital education initiative based in Sydney, Beijing and London. Dominic is also the Founder and Chief Executive of Our Place, a visionary architect development firm, currently regenerating urban sites in East London and Norwich as well as creating a new settlement for 10,000 people in the South of England. Our Place builds vibrant communities through creative and innovative design with a focus on true community-focused consultation. The enterprise’s mission is to create the perfect home, school or workplace in healthy, walkable new places with sustainable thinking and legacy at its very heart. Dominic has been inspired by the work of HRH The Prince of Wales and has gained a deep understanding of the impact of the built environment on the quality of life of those living and working within it. Dominic has served as Vice Chairman and Director of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community and is proud to serve as a Trustee of the Prince’s Trust Australia.

David Brownlow is the Chairman and Founder of The Havisham Group, a diverse trading and investment entity, and the founder of Huntswood, a specialist resourcing and consultancy firm focused on governance, risk and compliance in the areas of regulatory conduct and financial crime. Alongside his commercial endeavors, David spends a significant amount of time on charitable and philanthropic activities, which include his Charitable Foundation providing support where there is evidence of disadvantage. In addition, David is working with HRH The Prince of Wales to support Him in two areas: His Foundation for Building Community – where HRH made David a Trustee in 2013, and its Chairman in early 2014 – and also His work at Dumfries House where HRH has also made David a Trustee. For some years David has been a Patron of The Prince of Wales Hospice in Pontefract, a Patron of the National Osteoporosis Society, a Patron of The Landmark Trust and a Patron of the NSPCC.

Ben is the Commercial Director of Havisham Group and a Non-Executive Director of Huntswood, and works alongside David Brownlow on all of David’s commercial endeavours. This has led Ben into a range of business and philanthropic initiatives, including his contribution as an investor in and adviser to Prosper Education. Ben graduated from Bristol Business School with an Honours degree in International Business Studies with Spanish, having spent one year at Granada University. Ben speaks fluent Spanish and English and is passionate about the global business opportunities for children who are multilingual and trained in 21st century skills.

Baroness Anne Jenkin has a background working in politics, political campaigns and the charitable sector. She was created Conservative Member of the House of Lords in January 2011 for her political and charity work. With Theresa May, she founded and now chairs Women2Win – the successful campaign to get more women elected to Parliament – and chairs the Conservative Friends of International Development (CFID). Lady Jenkin is on the board of UNICEF UK and is a Patron of Restless Development as well as being actively involved with a number of other charities. She was a co-founder of Chartwell Worldwide Speakers Bureau and sits on the board of Eastern Data Group.

Fei-Fei Hu is a British-Chinese entrepreneur living between Tokyo, London and Shanghai. With his Japanese wife, he has two children aged 1 and 3. He is founder of Clarence Education Ltd. (Japan), Japan Polo Association, Hokkaido Home Farm Ltd, Arts&Kids Foundation (Japan) and Sushi Kaikai Ltd. He also currently serves as Japan Project Representative for Harrow International Management Services Ltd (Hong Kong), and Adviser for The Eiken Foundation (Japan) and Prosper Education Ltd (London). Before starting his own businesses and consultancy service, Fei-Fei was Secretary of The Prince’s Foundation (China) based in St. James’s Palace, London, from 2007-2015. He joined the Royal Household in 2006 as HRH The Prince of Wales’s Chinese assistant. Fei-Fei studied philosophy and anthropology at Waseda University (Tokyo) and Pembroke College, University of Oxford.