We set up schools, then we run them.
Alasala University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
39
Schools delivered
16
Countries
10
Year management agreements
Who we are.
GSE was founded in 2011 by Greg Parry and Shanna Parry after years leading international schools as heads and directors. That origin still shapes the firm. We are practitioners who moved into development and management, not advisors who moved into education.
Our model is simple to describe and hard to deliver. We take a school from feasibility through to opening day, then stay to operate it under long-term management agreements. We accept accountability for what happens after the building opens, which is the point at which most advisory relationships end. Where a school is already running, we step in to manage, turn around, or restructure it.
GSE has delivered school projects across 16 countries, spanning the GCC, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and Europe. Some we still operate. Some we built, proved, and handed on. The record below is a selection, not the full extent.
How we work.
Accountability is the difference. GSE works under management agreements of ten years or more, holds a seat on the school board, and leads the appointment of the Head of School. Our fees move with the school’s performance. If the school underperforms, the problem is contractually ours to fix. That structure runs through both sides of what we do: school development and school management.
Across the GCC, GSE delivers through GSE MENA, its joint venture with Ouqool and its base in the region. GSE MENA carries the full range of GSE’s work, from feasibility and development through to long-term management, and holds an initial mandate to develop and operate ten K-12 international schools and a university.
Selected work.
Six engagements that show the range of what GSE does, from launching and running schools to turning them around and building groups that hold their value. Click any project to read the case.
Cradle-to-Career Education Ecosystem, Saudi Arabia
Feasibility at platform scale · GSE MENA
A Riyadh developer set out to build a complete education platform in the Kingdom: early years through university, ten K-12 schools, a teacher training academy, and technical colleges. Not a school group, a cradle-to-career ecosystem.
GSE MENA delivered the full feasibility, built around a standardise-then-scale model: one school designed to a fixed standard, proven once and replicated rather than rebuilt campus by campus. Demand was modelled across the group so schools complemented rather than competed, and the teacher training academy answered the hardest question in any Gulf roll-out, where the staff come from.
Feasibility completed and accepted. In architecture design. First two schools launching 2028.
GFH Alia School, Bahrain
Management in partnership with the founder
An established school with 550 students already enrolled needed a professional management team without disrupting the families and staff already in it. GSE stepped in as the management team in 2026, in partnership with the founder rather than in place of them.
The engagement covers full operational management, American-curriculum delivery, and the school’s WASC accreditation standing, with Shanna Parry holding a delegated Director role inside the GSE structure. Taking over a live school is a different task from opening one: continuity matters more than change.
Operated under management agreement in partnership with the founder, 2026 to present.
International Language Institute, Alasala Colleges, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
Turnaround under shared ownership
Alasala Colleges held an English language institute performing below its potential and wanted an operator prepared to share ownership and take accountability for results, not another advisory report. GSE entered a shared JV and took over in 2024.
The work rebuilt teaching and staffing structures, established a staffing operating protocol positioning the institute as the authority on staffing outcomes within the university, and prepared its facilities for international examination accreditation across four testing labs.
Enrolment doubled within two years. Now an accredited IELTS examination centre. GSE continues as operator under the JV.
Confucius International Education Group, China
A group built and sold
The venture set out to build a differentiated international school group, not another franchise. It needed a curriculum that stood apart and an operator who could build group value, not just open doors.
GSE set up and operated the schools from launch and built the group’s defining asset: the Confucius Six Arts, a proprietary model blending UK and US frameworks with the Confucius Analects across Grades 6 to 13. Operating each school directly, rather than licensing the model out, kept delivery consistent as the group grew to three locations.
Set up and operated 2011 to 2015. Acquired by a private equity group in 2015, a trade sale within four years of the first school.
Royal International College, Equatorial Guinea
Full set-up in an emerging market
A private investor wanted to establish an international school in a market with little existing provision and no ready pipeline of operators. They needed a partner to take the project from concept to an operating school, then hand it back to run themselves.
GSE ran the full set-up: facilities planning, curriculum design, branding, marketing, and the accreditation pathway. The school was built to 1,500-student capacity and positioned as an IB Primary Years Programme candidate school.
Delivered and handed over 2024. Now operated by owner.
360-Degree School Turnaround Review, Saudi Arabia
Whole-school diagnostic and recovery plan
An established school needed an independent, clear-eyed read across every area of its operation, academic, financial, staffing, and accreditation, and a plan to act on it ahead of a move to a new site.
GSE ran a full 360-degree review across the complete scope of the school. The work surfaced significant financial savings, reworked the senior leadership and staffing model, and diagnosed accreditation gaps against required standards, converting a whole-school diagnostic into a clear path forward.
Review and improvement plan delivered 2022. School readied for transition to a new purpose-built campus.
Founder-led, from the field.
GSE was founded by Greg Parry and Shanna Parry after years leading international schools themselves. Both remain directly involved in every project, from feasibility through to head of school appointments.
Our Story
Senior leadership.
Duncan Douglas
Senior Director
Duncan leads project management for new schools across all regions, covering school design, market research, and feasibility studies. His work runs from the earliest scoping of a project through to the detailed planning that takes it to build.
Stewart Saint-David
Executive Consultant
Stewart is a graduate of Harvard University and a published author, with specialist expertise in education leadership, language development and curriculum design across China, Europe and South America.
Don Henson
Director of Education, Asia
Don has spent over twenty years in international education across Asia and the United States, in roles spanning studies direction, centre management and corporate leadership. A certified IELTS and TOEFL examiner, he brings deep expertise in teacher training, assessment and academic quality.
The wider team.
Behind the leadership sits a team of specialists: a financial analyst, an architect, a graphic design executive, education and leadership specialists, and curriculum and accreditation specialists. Design, branding, financial modelling, and academic expertise sit inside the same team, which is how GSE takes a school from feasibility through to opening without handing the critical work to outside firms.
Discussing a school project?
Tell us where you are, from early feasibility to a school already operating. Conversations are confidential.
Greg Parry and Shanna Parry, Co-Founders