The recently launched Spear’s Schools Index 2024 was developed by an expert panel co-chaired by Thuso Group managing director Matthew Goldie-Scot, and Ian Douglas, Spear’s head of research, with the wider panel convened with support and input from the teams at both Thuso, and Spear’s, as well as drawing on insights from a range of other experts internationally.
With Matthew having been closely involved in supporting the Spear’s Schools Index since its inception, as well as having served as a judge for the School of the Year category in the annual Spear’s Awards, which Thuso has supported for the past two years, the group is particularly well placed to support Spear’s in ensuring the Schools Index continues to serve as a key resource for HNW individuals, family offices, and professional advisors to families internationally.
[See also: Introducing the Spear’s Schools Index 2024]
This reflects Thuso’s wide-ranging expertise in the education sector, with the team having supported myriad privately-backed initiatives internationally, from the establishment of new schools, nurseries, and universities in the US, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Asia Pacific Region, working closely with school operators, owners, and founders, as well as private equity backed groups. In addition to support of new ventures, they have also provided extensive turnaround support for underperforming institutions, supporting international expansions (particularly in emerging markets), and advised on transactions (buy-side, and sell-side), mergers, and acquisitions in the private education space. The team has also supported educational reporting, and indices development, in partnership with a range of organisations including Spear’s and Knight Frank‘s ‘The Wealth Report’ City Series. Thuso’s team has also undertaken numerous education-focused market intelligence and research reports for clients seeking insights into specific contexts, with recent work focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, the Baltic States, and China. Thuso’s strategic consultancy work internationally has garnered significant recognition, with the Group recently listed as a Finalist in the Education Investor Awards for a fifth consecutive year, including in the ‘Consultant of the Year – Strategy’ category, alongside PwC, and EY-Parthenon’.
Thuso also provides support to a range of philanthropic, charitable, and humanitarian organisations, including private foundations, in ensuring that development and humanitarian funding is impactfully directed, with clear accountability mechanisms, underpinned by a robust evidence-based approach to selecting interventions. The group’s work focused particularly on crisis and conflict affected contexts, including Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, North-East Nigeria, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Timor-Leste. In the past year, Thuso’s team has been particularly focused on support to education initiatives in Ukraine, seeking to support educational continuity during the ongoing conflict, as well as work in fragile contexts in the Middle East. This work is wide-ranging, from assignments focused on support to education systems, to those focused on combatting child-trafficking, and child abuse in schools, as well as broader areas such as nutrition, food security, drought relief, and water infrastructure, as well as assignments focused on livelihoods and the digital economy. In particular, Thuso’s Third Party Monitoring Practice, established by Thuso Founding Partner Charles Schulze, and now managed by Associate Partner, and former Infantry Officer, Andrew Bauer, has developed a highly innovative digital platform applying machine learning and automated data analytics and reporting to humanitarian and development contexts, allowing clients to garner rapid insights into interventions in the world’s most challenging contexts.
[See also: How traditional British education thrives overseas]
The Group has also sought to increase its support for legal reform, with General Counsel Shawn Desker supporting growth of the group’s Rule of Law practice, including a range of influential publications, particularly focused on compliance, corruption, and transparency (with a focus on the Caribbean), as well mediation (with particular relevance for those working in the family courts, as well as those working in high-level alternative dispute resolution), with the latter supported by Mark Beer OBE, former Registrar and Chief Executive of the DIFC Courts. This work continues to expand, alongside a wide range of public policy engagements, including developing and delivering a series of training programmes to civil servants across Kazakhstan, on behalf of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Additionally, Thuso consultants have frequently served as guest lecturers at the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai, providing training, guidance and support to policymakers, government officials, and diplomats in the region, and internationally.
Within this context, Thuso’s work, expertise, and insights have been reported, and drawn upon, in a wide range of international contexts, including in the United Kingdom, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan.
This includes Spear’s articles on such varied themes as leading schools overseas, Eton’s new provost, and how to get into leading private schools in the United Kingdom.
It is anticipated that, both on work focused on education, as well as in broader areas in which Thuso has relevant expertise, there will be a wide range of continued collaboration between Spear’s and Thuso Group. An upcoming example is the Schools Index Launch Event, taking place on 24 April at The Savoy in London.
