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When John Forsyth, CEO and founder of Forfar Education, a growing group of 18 schools - 10 in England and eight overseas - was seeking investment for the business, most were confused by his pitch.

“I’d go to US banks or foundations and I would roll in with my business deck and they’d say, ‘This is an investment in high schools?’ And I’d say ‘yes’ and they’d say, ‘Ah, the foundation is downstairs.’ They didn’t see it as a business; they saw it as a charity.”

This was a barrier that was hard to overcome: “We went to 183 investors - and every single one said no. Eventually the 184th said yes.”

It probably takes a certain type of person to persevere through 183 rejections - and an overview of Forsyth’s career perhaps shows he is the sort who would push on.

“I went to university and studied ancient history. When I left and didn’t know what to do, I joined the army at Sandhurst. I thought I’d get a bit of skiing and horse riding in,” he jokes.

“My first day of duty was 9/11.”

This meant he soon found himself in Iraq on several tours of duty, becoming a specialist in everything from “long-range desert warfare” and “urban warfare” to “tanks and peacekeeping stuff”. He adds: “You grow up fast doing that.”

A production line in Slough

His army life ended in 2007 and the world of work was calling. “It was perfect timing because there was a global financial crisis, so I couldn’t get a job,” he laughs.

Eventually Forsyth found something: “I ended up going to work in a chocolate factory in Slough.”

The factory was owned by the company Mars, and Forsyth, who joined as operations shift manager, says he learned a lot there - “It taught me about people, it taught me about logistics.” But he makes no bones about the nature of the work.

“It was put a hairnet on and your overalls and boots and go into the factory and do a full 12-, 14-hour night shift,” he says.

Being CEO of a school group was a long way off.

But then something unexpected happened. “I got a phone call saying, “Do you want to come and work for a company in Singapore, but you’d be based in Vietnam building healthcare businesses?”

That call came from a company founded by Richard Chandler, a billionaire CEO who had put an advert out looking for people with expertise in logistics and with military backgrounds as part of a recruitment drive for different types of leaders.

Focusing on education

Forsyth applied and was accepted. He was flown to Singapore and told to find a healthcare business that the group could acquire within 28 days or he’d be fired.

He managed it and was hired full-time, and soon became CEO of the company’s healthcare division. It was through this that his first interactions with education came, as the group had invested in schools owned by a company called the Nobel Group.

Keen to learn more about education and the markets the schools were operating in, he sought information from big consultancy firms in the places he was working such as Vietnam, Hong Kong and Singapore.

What he discovered shocked him - while the consultants had ample information on healthcare settings, data on education was almost non-existent: “They said, ‘No one’s ever asked us for that information before,’” he recalls.

That insight, coupled with a growing realisation that he found education more interesting than healthcare, led him - after a short stint leading another entrepreneurial firm in Asia that also owned schools - back to UK and the plan to launch Forfar. This plan faced the aforementioned funding challenges.

“Everyone said it couldn’t be done, but you have to just keep going sometimes,” Forsyth says.

Snapping up schools - and considering where next

His perseverance paid off and the first investment the company made was buying three prep schools in the North of England, before adding more in the South of England, too.

The International School of Torres Vedras (EITV), in Portugal, is part of the Forfar group

International expansion came in 2024 with a nursery and prep school in Lisbon, Portugal, followed by others in Spain, Andorra and, most recently and substantially, in Greece, where Forfar has both bought and built schools.

It takes the group’s international total to eight, with no sign of it slowing down. “In every city there is a private school probably worth having as part of our portfolio,” says Forsyth.

This could include some lesser-spotted areas on the international circuit: “People say Northern Europe is not really a private school area, Norway, Sweden, Finland and so on, but there are private schools there - it’s just not a big market.”

He continues: “We’re also looking at Eastern Europe...definitely North America, and we were looking at the Middle East.”

This past tense “were” is an obvious reference to the war in the region earlier this year but also the recent violence in Saudi Arabia, too, as, once again, world events seem to have collided with Forsyth’s career plans.

“There’s a sort of a pause, I would say. My gut says to me, as a company CEO, would I be sending employees, maybe some with young families, to the Middle East right now? It’s pretty difficult,” he says.

Forsyth adds that he thinks the market will recover, but that right now “no one really knows how that’s going to shake out”.

Strengthening the central team

If and when these expansions happen, it will also mean the group needs strong central capacity - something that Forfar addressed with the notable hire of Fiona Carter from Wellington College as group director of education.

“Fiona is very experienced, very accomplished and that unusual mix, like some of our other regional directors, of being an educator first and then someone who understands the operations and the business of schools as well,” says Forsyth.

He says this should ensure that an educational focus remains central to how the business operates, rather than it slipping down the agenda as the organisation grows.

“She’s got this amazing ability to her depth of knowledge in education, both in different curricula and in terms of monitoring and measuring outcomes, and her ability to lead schools,” Forsyth continues.

“She’s part of the plan to make sure that we can keep schools right at the forefront of the agenda, and they’re not somewhere down in an Excel spreadsheet.”

Forsyth should take no convincing on that front, though, as he tries to be in schools as much as possible - “sitting behind a desk is a very dangerous place from which to run a company” - and says that he sees too many management layers as the wrong set-up.

“I was hiring someone recently and I asked them how many layers between them and the CEO. They said six. That was someone at the school level, the country level, the regional level and so on. I felt that was a good lesson in how not to run things.”

Safe and happy pupils

How does he want to run things then? His mantra is that Forfar schools should create “safe, happy, educated” children - and he is deliberate about that order.

“I always say, internally, we are here to keep children safe and to keep them happy, because sad, angry children don’t learn,” he says.

Forsyth continues: “People always say, ‘What makes a good school? What makes a good school business?’ I always come back to no matter what type of school it is, you’ve got to have that sense of community with staff, parents and pupils.”

He also makes it clear that Forfar’s pitch to parents is that while “academic success is an absolute bedrock”, it comes with an equally strong focus on real-world experiences and learning as individuals.

“People say, ‘What makes Forfar different?’ and I say, ‘What we’re trying to put through the company is that feeling of resilience and confidence’”’ he says.

“It’s about getting children off their phones and getting out into the world, doing exchanges, going and seeing different things, learning new things, experiencing new places to discover things about yourself, and, through that, you build resilience and confidence.”

Resilience and confidence are words Forsyth cites a lot in our conversation - 18 times, in fact - which is perhaps not surprising given his own career path: “You have got to learn how to get knocked down and get back up again,” he says.

Forfar’s English International College in Marbella, Spain

“No one wants that for their kids, but you want to make sure that they’ve got some framework around them to understand it. I think that’s super important.”

Life skills, AI and seeing the world

Linked to this, the group is adding a life skills programme to its offering, focusing on things like financial literacy and cooking, while trips between its schools are foundational, Forsyth says.

“That’s not just because we want kids to learn how to ski. That’s because we want to interact with the other kids. We want classes to do hybrid lessons; learn about Henry VIII here and go and learn about the Crusades in Rhodes.”

This doesn’t mean technology is being shunned - Forsyth says teaching students how to use AI, to understand its benefits, shortcomings and dangers is important, and they are looking at ways to do this creatively.

“We will set an essay question and only want them to use AI to write the essay, and they have to record their prompts and then we’ll see who’s written the best essay and why because they used certain prompts,” he explains.

“You want to teach them the reason why this kid got a better score is because they asked these questions, in this order, and that shows critical thinking. Whereas this kid only asked these questions and not enough of them.”

His contention, though, is that AI is just another iteration of technology - like the internet or the iPad - and that while it is claimed it will change education forever, it is, in fact, just another thing children need to learn within a broader education.

“I actually think that education is one of those industries which AI is unlikely to revolutionise,” Forsyth says, in stark contrast to moves by Inspired Education and GEMS Education to deliver AI-led curricula.

He continues: “I think as AI becomes more integrated into everything, parents will see the value of an education not so closely tied to a screen, and I think they see the value of having an education that provides children with confidence, that gets them outdoors, that makes them resilient.”

There are those words again.

Stepping back? Or driving forward

Towards the end of our conversation, though, Forsyth says something that could be read as a signal that his own well of resilience is becoming depleted: “I’m probably going to step back quite a bit from the business. I’ve done this for a long time.”

Does this mean he’s thinking of stepping down as CEO? Not a bit of it.

“I will remain CEO,” he clarifies, explaining that the company is in the process of “recruiting additional senior (C-Suite) executives” to bring “further experience and depth” to the senior team at the firm.

This, he says, will allow more delegation of “day-to-day operational responsibilities” so he can focus more on “strategic priorities, including the continued growth and development” of Forfar.

Based on the story so far, you wouldn’t bet against him.

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