From Classroom Teacher to Taaleem CEO: Lessons in Leadership at Scale with Alan Williamson

We trace Alan’s path from rugby pitches and the Boys’ Brigade to classroom leadership and, later, stewarding one of the UAE’s fastest‑growing school groups. Along the way, we unpack Taaleem’s values, retention wins, Harrow’s authentic arrival in the UAE, and a balanced take on basics and AI.

• Sport as a gateway to confidence and academic lift
• relationships as the fourth R in teaching
• shift from military ambition to classroom service
• early career in languages and humanities
• move to the UAE and founding leadership at King’s
• Why multi‑curricula breadth led to Taaleem
• growth via PPPs, charter and Dubai Schools
• IPO with an education‑first mindset
• values of care, respect, and inspiration guiding strategy
• teacher retention, PD, and internal pathways
• Harrow partnership built on authentic DNA
• adapting heritage to UAE culture and policy
• balancing core literacy and numeracy with AI
• using technology to reduce teacher admin
• personal rituals that keep leadership grounded

Transcript

Welcome And Alan’s Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Connecting, developing, and empowering educators.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hey everyone, Lisa Grace here, welcoming you back to the Teach Middle East podcast. Today I have Alan Williamson, CEO of TALIM, and Tallim is one of the larger education groups here in the Middle East, well, particularly in the UAE. And we're going to be talking to Alan not only about Tallem, but about him, about his leadership journey, about the work he's doing, obviously, with the expansion of Tallim and the work that's going on right now around Harrow. But we will put that to the tail end of the podcast. So if you're listening and you want to learn about that, stay till the end. But right now, we want to get to know Alan. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Thank you very much. I've been excited to be on this podcast. I follow it for a long time, and I have to apologize for not getting in touch sooner. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Thank you so much, Alan. I think the listeners need to know that I've kind of known you since King's days. So now with Taliem, it's it's almost like a full circle moment. Tell me a little bit about your childhood in education. Is there something that's memorable for you as you sit here on this podcast that kind of brings you back to your days in school?

School Days Shaped By Sport

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Wow, that's a that's a big question for someone as old as me to think back to school. I would say I went to an ordinary comprehensive school in a local authority council housing estate in the United Kingdom. And if I'm honest, it was really sport that inspired me in school. I had three or four fantastic teachers that I guess spotted my sporting talent, I would say, rather than academics, which obviously came. In our school, it tended to be the more affluent middle class parents and students who played rugby union. And because my brother was an amazing footballer, I never took my brother on anything that he was better than me in. And he'd been older. He was actually a bit of a rogue at school, and he won't mind me saying that. So I played rugby union, and two or three of these teachers were my rugby union coach playing for the school. And when I moved into a network of friends whose parents were doctors and lawyers, etc., and played for the rugby team, I think my academics actually improved in school. Ended up absolutely loving school, did very well in subjects like modern languages and uh economics and history uh at A level, and then went on to university. But honestly, and I say this so often, my if you like, my confidence in who I am as a person was as much born on the sports field as in a school classroom.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

This is why I love this podcast, because I've heard you on many, many interviews on the radio, etc. I had no idea. One, you had an older brother, two, how much of a sports person you are. And three, what kind of background you come from in terms of schooling and how that has shaped you. What was that specific moment that made you realize you wanted to be in education? How did that come about?

From Military Dreams To Teaching

SPEAKER_02 3:52

That's an even, I guess, more interesting story. The other thing that inspired me as a young student, a young child, was an organization called the Boys Brigade. It's equivalent to Boy Scouts, but it's a much more military uniform, marching uh at bands like we have in American schools and things like that. So I was part of that quasi-military organization, and my uncle was actually in the the Royal Marines, and I was inspired by him. And what I really wanted to be as a young man was uh was a military officer, and that's how I actually started my, if you like, my university pathway. However, uh in the middle of the North Atlantic with uh Force 10 Gales, I actually decided that the military career wasn't for me, it's also very scary, and I also, from a younger age in that boys' brigade organization, uh, had been working with younger children, and actually at that moment I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. Actually, my dad had always talked about how if he had been able to stay in school and go to university, he always spoke up for the teaching profession. So I actually moved, which is really such a sort of crazy move from the military through to being a teacher, and I started teaching in the Shetland Islands, which anybody knows the United Kingdom is actually nearer to Scandinavia, Norway, Iceland than it is to Great Britain. And I would started in a wonderful school called the Anderson High School, which was founded by PO Ferries, the large shipping group.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

So what kind of teacher were you? Because you know when your teacher has an army background and then they come into the classroom, what were you like?

Relationships As The Fourth R

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Well, uh, you know, you'd have to ask the thousands of students who were taught by me. Um, I was actually at the top of a mountain in Scotland this new year, uh, just after Christmas, and one of my former students came up to me. Uh, it was just incredible, on the top of the mountains. And indeed, he had joined the military and uh was having a successful career. I guess I I tried to build relationships, um, so I probably wasn't the strict disciplinarian that you're imagining, having come from the military, but I I did have that side to me. I was always capable, I had a good stare if you were not behaving well, um, and usually that was enough to get the children to buy in. But yeah, I I remember um some of the older teachers when that when I first started, and you know, you're watching them, and some of them were old school disciplinarians, but some of them really encouraged me, including a deputy head teacher that was almost a mentor to me in Anderson High School, talking about the importance of relationships. So we had reading, writing, arithmetic. Remember, this was the 1980s, a long, long time ago, and relationships, that fourth R. And I always remember him saying that um people will never remember what the actual physics that you taught a child, or the French vocabulary that you taught a child, or the historical dates that you taught a child, but they'll remember how you spoke to them. Um, and I I'll never forget that bit of advice. So no matter how strained the relationship could be with some students, I hopefully never um offended someone. And I always took an interest in the child. Uh, and I always remember going to interview later when I became a headmaster, etc. And I always remember asking people who were coming in, are you a teacher of physics or a teacher of chemistry? If I was interviewing for science, or are you a teacher of children? And so many of them said, I'm a teacher of physics, expecting me to be impressed by an Oxford or Cambridge degree. And I said, That's a given. You've got a degree in history or a degree in economics. I want you to be a teacher of children. That's more important to me.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

That's a good way of putting it. I've not actually heard that before. Because if you're a teacher of children, then you will cultivate the love for the subject inevitably. Absolutely. Absolutely love that, Alan. So when you started teaching, what subject were you teaching?

SPEAKER_02 8:56

So my degree was actually in history and Russian language. Um, Yagavryuk Paroski or Chimploka. Um, this was uh Yanisnayu, I don't know. So actually, that was because what I wanted to do in the military was uh in relation to Ruski Yazik, Russian language. But um when I got into schools, it was actually more teaching humanities, um, history, politics, economics. And obviously, I had some language background, so where required too many languages, you probably front say and pitipo som. So I was able to speak a little bit of language as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

That's good. I mean, I I'm a languages teacher, but I did not do Russian. I don't even think Russian was offered in my high school, but it's quite interesting. Now I know listeners are gonna be like, I can't believe you speak Russian. Many people don't know this.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Well, I don't speak it very well. It was in the 1980s, it's a long, long time ago.

Languages, Humanities, And Early Career

SPEAKER_01 9:57

And then you moved from the Shetlands. I'm gonna make you shrink your CV and just skip to the part where you got to the Middle East and how you got here.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Yeah, various headshots in the United Kingdom. Honoured to have been involved with the Arnold Foundation at Rugby School, an independent school in England, promoting um children from backgrounds uh that were not from the independent sector to move into the incredible opportunity of the independent sector. I then met an incredible man called Kevin Steadman from King's Education and Taya Balbaker, the owner of King's, and came out to be the founding principal of King's School Al Barcia. And I remember the school wasn't the incredible huge school it is on Um Sakim today, and in partnership with the incredible Rebecca Gray and many, many other successful leaders in that school, we were able, well, credit to Rebecca Gray, we were able to take the school to outstanding. And at that point, having loved working for Kings, such a fantastic schools group, and Beat Higgins is running that extremely well now. It was a single UK curriculum schools group based in Dubai, and Tallem for me was so exciting because not only did it have schools in Dubai, it had schools in Abu Dhabi, but it also had a plethora of curricula, um, and in particular the American curriculum and the IB. And of course, now we have the French curriculum, but I believe the change was obviously the growth story of Tallim, which we've been able to deliver. But I think at that time, six, seven years ago, it was more that King's was a brilliant schools group, but UK only. And I was really interested in learning more about the other curricula.

Leadership In UK And Move To UAE

SPEAKER_01 12:07

So when I came out here in 2010, Tallinn wasn't as big, and actually we worked, Tallim had a partnership with Edison, so it was Tallinn Edison, and we were doing, I had colleagues who worked with them, and I worked with Nord Anglia, and we were all doing the school reform. But between Roz and you coming up through the line, Tallim has really, really grown. What do you attribute that growth to?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, I think the ambition of the board of Tallim and the ambition of Dubai government to move some of the private companies into public companies. And I don't want to blow my own trumpet at all. Um there's no I and team, as they say, but the team, the senior team who came in around that time, myself, um, the CFO, Arno, Sam Truman, the COO, and of course Rebecca joining us on that journey. Um, and in particular, the real rapid growth was the move into the public-private partnership with the charter schools in Abu Dhabi, the Dubai schools with Sheikh Kamdan here. Um, but as you say, even I was watching um Talem when I was at King's, and it was, you know, a couple of UK schools, the Fantastic DBS Group, and Raha in Abu Dhabi, and the likes of Jumeirah Baccalaureate School in the American Academy here. But I think when I joined, there were seven schools, and now we have 36 plus now, also 35 nurseries. So, you know, 70 schools and nurseries from 2019 when I joined, there were seven schools.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Did I miss the ball, Alan? Should I have bought shares? Tell me.

Why Taaleem: Multi‑Curricula Vision

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Obviously, I'm going to say you definitely should have bought shares in in the company. I mean, we've doubled the the price of our shares, so you would have been uh in a good position. But you know, look, one thing I will always say about Talem, and hopefully this comes from me, but really it comes from the board, is I'll never forget our chairman who's uh Halid Altair, you know, runs at Altair Corporation. All of our board are fantastic businessmen and women who are running highly successful businesses, but their passion and their heart is in education. And the chip just before we went to ring the bell of the IPO, Hallett said to me and the management team when we become a public company in five minutes' time, don't focus on the share price. He said that would be a mistake. Share prices can go up and down depending on global events, what President Trump's doing today or or tomorrow. He said, focus on education. If you get the education right in your schools, the profitability and the share price will look after itself. And do you know what? That's been so close to what the Tulim board have stood for since I joined right through to even the latest board meeting. They want to talk about our schools and they want to talk about the children in our schools. And I bet you everybody else thinks that we mainly talk about finance and money and a bidder and net profit. But actually, all that comes from running successful schools.

Growth Story And IPO Mindset

SPEAKER_01 15:57

It's good to know this, and I tell you why. When education companies go public, the first thing we think is that they're going to lose the heart for education. And as a teacher myself, a former head, you immediately start to think, oh my God, profit over people. But I'm loving the fact that you're you're reiterating that even the chair of your board is putting the emphasis on the children because that's what schools are for. I wonder, um, as you've spoken about that, is what's the what's the kind of guiding principle that Taliem lives by? Is there one that is written across the foreheads of everybody there?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, look, we've three kinds of guiding vision, principles, mission. Um, you know, I d I don't I I don't get too caught up in that. I think you walk the talk, and when you walk the talk, that's how your organization runs. But care, respect, and inspiration has always been 22 years ago, um, when the come when uh some Emirati uh eminent people gathered round a table, the motivation was to bring high-quality education, not just to the Emirati community, but also to the expat community. And those guiding principles about caring, respecting, and inspiring. Even when I came in, even Ross before me, Dr. Ziyard, the three CEOs that we've had in the past 20 years, no one has ever changed the vision or mission of Tulim. We still say inspiring young minds. Because that importance of trying to inspire who you work with, who you work for, the children in your classrooms, the parents that pay to come to our schools or are given that free by the government in, say, the public-private partnership charter program. That's what we're trying to do. But you must always care for your colleagues and the children in particular, and it must be in a culture of respect. I love what's written behind you there. Work hard to be kind. And I'll never forget Bill Turner, who was um a colleague in King's, always talked about in Kevin Steadman a culture of kindness. And I know Bede still drives that through King's today. And I'll never forget that culture of kindness. It's so important.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

It's super important. And when you think about Tallim and its drive to hire and retain the best teachers, how are you doing that as an organization? Because that's that's what makes me tick, you know that.

Values: Care, Respect, Inspiration

Hiring And Keeping Great Teachers

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah, I mean, it's actually amazing because I've just came to this podcast from meeting my vice chairman, and the subject was actually teacher retention. So again, you would think the subject would be profitability, but again, as I emphasize, if you get your schools right, if you get the care for your children right, the kindness for your children, then the parents will buy into that and the profitability flows from that. But actually, the reason I'm smiling is our teacher retention has moved from about losing 25% of your teachers when I came to that small company to it now being under 10%. Part of that is Tlim. Part of it is also, if I'm honest, and I always credit the success of Talem to the success of Abu Dhabi, the success of Dubai, and the success of the UAE. Inevitably, I believe more and more teachers are reflecting the economy. They are coming here, they're marrying, they're having children, they're buying into the Dubai and Abu Dhabi property market, they're making the UAE their home. Whereas when we came a long time ago, everybody was like, I'm coming for two years, then I'm going to Singapore or Hong Kong or I'm going back to um wherever we originate from. That was the mentality. But yes, Tallinn does some things right, but the UAE is also doing so many things right. So that teachers, you know, want to stay here. Look, everybody will tell you that teachers or leaders will move because of salary, because of flights, because of insurance, because of terms and conditions. I don't honestly believe that gems or Talim or Aldar or Cognita pay hugely differently. I think teachers stay in their school or their organization because they're learning, professional development, strong, their line manager is displaying respect, care and inspiration, kindness. I think that's why people stay loyal to organizations. I have to say we do benefit from scale. One of our principals, Amy Faley, who's just been appointed to the principal of DBS Mira, actually started in Talim as a classroom teacher. And what a lovely story that Talim's been able to provide her with head of year, assistant head teacher, deputy head teacher, headteacher, vice principal, and then on to principal. And I think when you've got scale, you can provide promotion opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

It's so fun you mentioned, Amy. I was texting her this morning because she spoke last year at the leadership conference, and I was texting Her as oh, you've got to come this year, it's happening in a couple of weeks' time. So random that you mentioned her out of all your principles. Hello, Amy, if you're listening. And so Tallinn has set itself on a course of growth. And so I want to lead into the big news that's been out that Harrow is coming to the UAE under the Tallim brand, and the pavilion is open and things are going on. Tell me all about it. Give me the insider tips that no one knows.

Pathways, Scale, And Talent Growth

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Yeah, look, we're we're absolutely proud and honoured to be partnering with such a prestigious school as Harrow. We we've had several um outreaches from UK independent schools. Um for me, if I walked around the streets of London and asked a lay person, you know, what's the two best schools in in the UK? We could argue there's a hundred schools that could be put forward because we're in the in the business. But the the layperson would probably say Eaton and Harrow. Um there it's like Oxford and Cambridge, Yale and Harvard. They're just names that are beyond the UK. So um, you know, we've been working with Harrow school leadership, their head teacher, their board of governors, um, and their international schools for a long time. Before we announced it, we accessed land, you know, in partnership with ADIO, um the Abu Dhabi government, in partnership with the Knowledge Fund and Dubai government for such a prestigious school to be in both the cities of the UAE. Um, as you said, we've uh or or mentioned before we started today, we've we're really pleased to have Simon O'Connor coming onto the the Harrow brand. Uh Simon's got an incredible track record in Jumeirah College and and also in the UK, and obviously with Alpha Tame. So we're absolutely delighted to start with school. It's going really well. Enrollment's looking really strong. Um, some lovely families, lovely children joining through the pavilion. But I think to pause, what we've really tried hard to do, and this is why we worked for two or three years before we announced it, is it's not to be a badge on the side of a school. And to be honest, you did mention it's a Talim school, but it's Harrow. We've really said it's not, it's a Harrow school. Okay. We want Harrow DNA, Harrow curriculum, Harrow Supercurriculum, Harrow Pastoral Care, the Harrow values to really drive that school. And that's really what we've been working on from the design to the appointment of staff to the onboarding of families. They really must feel they're coming to Harrow Dubai and Haru Abu Dhabi.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I love that. And I tell you why, not to be controversial, but you know what it is. When when schools come out here, it's like you're renting a name, and once you've rented the name, you you kind of sell that product, but it's not the actual authentic product. So I'm loving the fact that you guys are putting the emphasis on having the authenticity brought in. But what are you gonna do differently? Because this is a different region. So we know Harrow, as in UK, Harrow cannot just come and sit here as itself in this region. This region has its own peculiarities, its own nuances. So what's gonna be the UAE version of it?

Harrow Partnership Announced

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah, absolutely. And that's been uh part of the two, three-year planning process as well. You you can take some aspects of a 450-year history. We will bring the uniform, we will bring all of the lovely names and quirks of Harrow. Uh, we will bring things like the dining, the importance, and that's that's such an important habit to eat with your housemasters, uh, your house mistresses. We're going to bring all of that DNA here, but obviously being based in the UAE, there there are aspects such as Arabic Islamic education, um, personal social development, the importance of technology and AI driven by the UAE government that we need to balance. And that's why, and absolutely love this that we've come up with tradition meets tomorrow, where we'll bring the tradition of Harrow, and Simon is working so hard with Rebecca Gray to ensure that you know those Harrow values are are in the school, the Harrow uniform, the the hat, etc. But ensuring that it's an ultra modern curriculum and it meets the importance of the cultural values that we all uh buy into as citizens of the UAE resident citizens.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yeah. If you know how I can get a passport, Alan, just just let me know. Because uh, I mean 15 years, by now I deserve one, right?

Authentic Harrow DNA In The UAE

SPEAKER_02 27:23

I think it's uh one of the best passports in in the world. But um, you look, uh I I've always said it's an honor and a privilege to to live here. And you know, I love when Rebecca Grace speaks about our charter schools and our Dubai schools. Um, we're one of the few organizations. Aldar probably are in the same position, but I don't think there's any other schools group that could say that 60% of their students are Emirati. And even in our private schools, um, we have 30, 40 percent, um, sometimes higher, like the American Academy. Um, and she always says it's uh it's an honor and a privilege not to just teach children, but to teach the children of of this nation. Um, and I always get uh like a bit tingly when when she speaks about that, and that's why you know we also love our public-private partnership work.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Yeah, it's actually a very good thing to note that because it's it's almost like you're a guest in the country, but you also want to give back just because they have hosted us so graciously in their in their nation. Let's segue a little bit. You are an educator at heart, things are changing a lot in education, and I want to know from your not your CEO hat, but your educator hat. What are you seeing in the sector that excites you?

Tradition Meets Tomorrow

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Oh, so much. Um, you know, I I I I love to get out and about uh in our schools. Uh I've had some wonderful uh experiences in our charter schools, the Dubai British School with Dubai British School, Jumera Park, and Emirates Hills as flagship schools. There's so much going on. We've got our IB schools where you see the teacher creativity, the innovation, the enterprise coming out. Schools like Uptown International School, I mentioned Raha earlier on. And I love our American curriculum schools. Um, the work that Graham Parris and his principals are doing in uh Sheikh Hamdan's Dubai schools. I think the big challenge for us all is AI and technology. Um, and we've got some brilliant innovation going on. I once said in a podcast, a very controversial thing, that um while that technology is so important, I I'm very old. I'm a bit of a dinosaur, and I still think that arithmetic, reading, writing, phonics, the love of a book, you know, we work with Isabel, honoured to work with Isabel from the Emirates Literature Festival and in many of our schools. And she talks about, you know, the importance of touching that library book and that being a window, uh, both a window out into the world with your imagination as you read that book, but also a reflection if you look in the glass of that window or on your own life. So there's nothing I love more than being in a kindergarten classroom or an elementary primary classroom and seeing the children reading and engaging with reading. Um, you know, there's lots of news items at the moment about children being on social media below 16. Um, so although there is you you like I was really blown away walking around my schools to see how our teachers are using technology, using AI. But for me, there's nothing like learning your times table, learning the arithmetic, learning the basics of mathematics and the basics of languages in order to build that strong foundation of learning that that you take into the world.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

You said it right. It's the foundation of learning. Countries like Sweden and Denmark are actually pulling back on the tech. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and it's not that they don't love tech or they don't want tech, but I think we went too far right. So we need to come back to the middle just a little bit and get those foundations strong. And once we do, then you can have the tech embedded in there as well. So yeah.

Emirati Community And Purpose

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Absolutely. I'm actually seeing, though, as a positive, a lot of things for teachers, a lot of um enablement for teachers to teach more imaginatively, to teach more creatively, and to make the administration, which we both know is a huge burden on teachers, um, more beneficial to allow more time for what truly matters, which is impacting on individual learners. So, you know, it's not it's not that we are in any way, shape, or form we are embracing AI, um, but I'm really interested also in what it can do for administration and and and for teachers, um, and as I said, for their creativity in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

There is a lot of potential there to cut out a lot of busy work out of admin, out of data and number crunching, and even out of strategic planning, as in putting in all the data, putting in all the input, and having AI help you with certain goals, and then you can then have that human input to see whether or not it aligns with the strategic view of your organization. So there is potential there for a lot of hours to be saved. I'm not gonna end the podcast on a on an AI note because that's not my style. I want to end it on something light, something personal. So we're winding down to the end. Thank you so much for being here, Alan. Um, what's your next fun thing that you're going to do for you? Nothing to worry. Me.

What Excites In Education

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Yes, you um look, I I love traveling. Um, I I I love uh I like cycling, I like walking. Um I'm I'm privileged um to live in Jumeirah, uh here in Dubai. Um, so probably the next thing that I'll do that's amazing is each night I try to walk the beach track um on Jumera. Um and you really appreciate where you live. I've got I I love the sea. Um I never mentioned that my passion in the military was the Royal Navy. Um, so I I love being beside the sea, I love the view of the city and the skyline. Um look, I I I think living in Dubai and living in Jumera um just allows me at night after some days are amazing, some days are slightly less amazing, but you know, I'm I'm very thankful for everything that's happened to me in my life. I've had a I've had an amazing life and an amazing time with Taleem. Um so each night I just love getting on the beach track, walking and looking in this, looking at this beautiful city and also looking out to the sea, um, and and sometimes wishing I was out there on a boat.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Brilliant. Thank you for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.