CEO - Education

Kuala Lumpur

Position Overview

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – Education will be responsible for leading the operational and financial performance of the organization’s education portfolio.

Reporting to the Group CEO and working closely with the Board and senior leadership team, the CEO will translate the organization’s strategic direction into disciplined execution across academic operations, school management, finance, human resources, student services, facilities, compliance, enrolment, and business expansion.

This role carries full ownership of the Education Division’s profit and loss performance. The CEO will be expected to strengthen operational controls, eliminate financial and process leakages, improve productivity, optimize resources, and establish clear performance accountability across all schools and business units.

The ideal candidate is a commercially driven and hands-on education leader with a proven track record in managing multi-site operations, improving profitability, setting up new schools, and building scalable operating systems within the education sector.

Key Responsibilities

1. Operational Leadership and Execution

Lead the overall day-to-day operations of the Education Division, ensuring effective execution across academic, administrative, commercial, financial, and support functions.
Translate the organization’s strategic objectives into clear operating plans, performance targets, budgets, timelines, and accountabilities.
Establish a standardized operating model, policies, procedures, and service standards across all schools and education business units.
Drive operational consistency, efficiency, quality, and scalability across multiple campuses or locations.
Conduct regular operational reviews to identify performance gaps, bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas requiring corrective action.
Ensure that management teams are accountable for agreed operational, financial, academic, and service-level outcomes.
Develop clear reporting structures, escalation processes, and decision-making frameworks to improve speed and execution quality.
Build a performance-driven operating culture focused on discipline, accountability, continuous improvement, and measurable outcomes.

2. Full P&L Ownership and Financial Performance

Hold full P&L accountability for the Education Division, including revenue growth, profitability, cash flow, operating expenditure, capital expenditure, and return on investment.
Develop and manage annual operating budgets, financial forecasts, business plans, and resource allocation strategies.
Monitor actual performance against budget and implement timely corrective measures where financial or operational targets are not achieved.
Improve operating margins through stronger revenue management, cost optimization, productivity improvement, and disciplined expenditure control.
Work closely with the finance team to strengthen financial reporting, budgeting accuracy, cash flow management, and management controls.
Establish clear financial accountability for school leaders, department heads, and functional managers.
Evaluate the commercial and financial viability of new programs, campuses, partnerships, and capital investments.
Ensure that all investments and expenditure are supported by clear business cases, expected returns, and measurable outcomes.

3. Cost Control and Leakage Prevention

Identify and eliminate financial, operational, and process leakages across the education portfolio.
Review procurement, payroll, staffing, vendor management, scholarships, discounts, student billing, collections, maintenance, utilities, and administrative expenditure to identify unnecessary or uncontrolled costs.
Strengthen controls over tuition fee collection, outstanding payments, discounts, rebates, waivers, commissions, refunds, and other revenue-related processes.
Ensure that student enrolment, attendance, billing, collections, and revenue recognition records are accurate and properly reconciled.
Implement approval matrices, expenditure controls, procurement governance, segregation of duties, and audit mechanisms.
Review staffing structures, teacher-to-student ratios, workload allocation, overtime, part-time resources, and support headcount to improve manpower productivity.
Improve vendor sourcing, contract management, purchasing practices, and supplier performance to achieve better cost efficiency and service quality.
Introduce regular operational and financial audits to detect wastage, control weaknesses, duplicate expenditure, underutilized assets, and revenue losses.
Establish corrective action plans and ensure that identified control gaps are resolved within agreed timelines.

4. Revenue Growth and Commercial Performance

Drive sustainable revenue growth through improved student enrolment, retention, fee collection, program expansion, partnerships, and new income streams.
Work closely with marketing, admissions, and school leadership teams to strengthen student recruitment and conversion performance.
Monitor enrolment pipelines, enquiry conversion rates, student retention, withdrawals, classroom capacity, and campus utilization.
Develop commercially viable tuition fee structures, pricing strategies, payment plans, discount frameworks, and scholarship policies.
Improve student retention by addressing academic quality, parent satisfaction, student experience, service delivery, and operational issues.
Identify opportunities to launch new programs, enrichment services, professional courses, educational products, and ancillary services.
Develop partnerships with corporations, government agencies, universities, education providers, and community organizations.
Ensure that all commercial initiatives are supported by clear revenue targets, cost assumptions, operating plans, and profitability assessments.

5. Performance Management and Operational Metrics

Establish a comprehensive operating dashboard covering financial, academic, commercial, human capital, compliance, and service performance.
Define and monitor key performance indicators for schools, campuses, departments, and leadership teams.
Track metrics such as revenue, EBITDA, operating margin, enrolment, retention, fee collection, outstanding receivables, staff costs, campus utilization, student-teacher ratios, parent satisfaction, academic outcomes, and compliance status.
Conduct monthly and quarterly business reviews with school and functional leaders.
Identify underperforming campuses, departments, programs, or cost centres and implement structured turnaround plans.
Ensure that operational data is accurate, timely, and used effectively to support management decisions.
Introduce benchmarking across campuses and promote the adoption of best practices.
Link leadership performance evaluations and incentives to clearly defined operational and financial outcomes.

6. Academic and Service Quality Oversight

Work closely with academic leadership to ensure that educational quality and commercial sustainability are managed in parallel.
Ensure that curriculum delivery, student outcomes, teaching standards, safeguarding, parent engagement, and student support services meet required standards.
Maintain a strong balance between academic excellence, student experience, operational efficiency, and financial sustainability.
Monitor parent and student feedback and ensure that service issues are addressed promptly and systematically.
Strengthen communication between school management, academic teams, students, parents, and support functions.
Ensure that operational decisions do not compromise educational standards, student safety, or the organization’s reputation.

7. Talent, Productivity and Organizational Effectiveness

Build a capable and accountable leadership team across academic and operational functions.
Oversee workforce planning, organizational structure, manpower budgeting, recruitment, performance management, succession planning, and leadership development.
Ensure that staffing levels and structures are aligned with enrolment, operational needs, productivity benchmarks, and financial targets.
Implement clear job accountabilities, performance scorecards, reporting lines, and decision rights.
Strengthen leadership capability at school, campus, and functional levels.
Drive performance improvement plans for underperforming employees and leaders.
Promote a high-performance culture based on ownership, transparency, execution discipline, teamwork, and continuous improvement.
Improve employee engagement and retention while maintaining appropriate productivity and cost controls.
Ensure that grievance, disciplinary, probation, and employee relations matters are managed professionally and consistently.

8. Governance, Risk and Compliance

Ensure compliance with Ministry of Education requirements, licensing conditions, accreditation standards, board policies, and applicable laws.
Maintain strong governance across financial controls, procurement, safeguarding, health and safety, data protection, employment practices, and school operations.
Develop and maintain an enterprise risk register for the Education Division.
Identify key financial, operational, regulatory, academic, reputational, and people-related risks.
Ensure that appropriate business continuity, crisis management, safeguarding, and emergency response plans are in place.
Work closely with internal and external auditors and ensure that audit findings are addressed promptly.
Provide the Board and Group CEO with clear visibility of material risks, control gaps, operational issues, and corrective actions.

9. New School Establishment and Business Expansion

Lead the operational planning and execution of new preschools, schools, campuses, and education-related ventures.
Manage feasibility studies, financial modelling, site selection, licensing, project planning, facility readiness, recruitment, enrolment, and operational launch.
Ensure that new school projects are delivered within approved timelines, budgets, and quality standards.
Develop scalable operating models that can be replicated across future locations.
Review potential acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures, and expansion opportunities from an operational and commercial perspective.
Establish clear post-launch performance targets and ensure that new operations progress towards breakeven and profitability.

10. Board and Stakeholder Management

Prepare and present regular operational and financial performance reports to the Group CEO and Board.
Provide clear analysis of business performance, variances, risks, challenges, and recommended actions.
Work closely with board members, shareholders, regulators, school leaders, parents, partners, and community stakeholders.
Represent the Education Division in relevant industry forums, institutional meetings, and regulatory engagements.
Maintain transparent and constructive relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.
Support the Group CEO in evaluating strategic priorities, investments, partnerships, and growth opportunities.

Qualifications and Experience

A Master’s degree in Business Administration, Education Leadership, Finance, Management, or a related field. An MBA is highly preferred.
At least 15 years of progressive leadership experience, including significant responsibility for education operations, multi-site management, or large-scale service businesses.
Proven experience holding full P&L responsibility within the education sector.
Strong track record in improving operational efficiency, controlling costs, increasing profitability, and strengthening financial discipline.
Demonstrated experience identifying and eliminating financial, operational, and process leakages.
Experience managing international schools, private schools, preschools, education groups, or multi-campus operations is strongly preferred.
Direct experience establishing new schools, campuses, or education business units will be a significant advantage.
Strong knowledge of school operations, student enrolment, fee structures, manpower planning, procurement, facilities, compliance, and academic support functions.
Experience in business turnaround, operational restructuring, or performance improvement would be highly advantageous.
Strong financial acumen, with the ability to interpret financial statements, budgets, forecasts, cash flow, margins, and operational performance data.
Strong understanding of governance, internal controls, risk management, and regulatory compliance.
Excellent stakeholder management, communication, negotiation, and influencing skills.
Full professional proficiency in spoken and written English

Key Leadership Attributes

Commercially minded and financially disciplined.
Strong sense of ownership and accountability.
Hands-on, decisive, and execution focused.
Able to identify operational weaknesses and address root causes.
Comfortable challenging existing practices and making difficult decisions.
Highly analytical and data driven.
Strong in cost control, process improvement, and performance management.
Able to balance academic quality with commercial sustainability.
Capable of leading organizational change and operational transformation.
Trusted by boards, shareholders, employees, parents, and external stakeholders.

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