Built for Excellence,
Driven by Passion

Our Management Team

Mr. Ajay Rajendran

Director & Chairman

Mr. Bernard J West

Managing Director

Mr. Rohan Bhaskar

Managing Director

Our Principals

Mrs. Fiona Cottam

Principal
Hartland International School Dubai

Mr. Jonathan Locke

Principal
NLCS Dubai

Mr. Paul Friend

Principal
NLCS (Singapore)
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Ajay Rajendran

Ajay Rajendran is the Chairman of Meraki Group, leading the three schools education portfolio - North London Collegiate School Dubai, North London Collegiate School Singapore and Hartland International School. He leads a team of more than 350+ staff in the education business with around 2075+ students across the schools. His experience in the entirespectrum of real estate, construction, facilities management, education operations, and business strategy and planning while keeping ‘customer’ at the centre of everything has led to setting up leading premium IB schools in Dubai and Singapore successfully.

In his capacity as Chairman, Ajay has helped shape the Group’s growth in the UAE and now stepping foot internationally through Singapore. He also acts as Chairman for mid income real estate businesses as well as contracting businesses in Dubai.

Ajay is a gold medalist in Chemical Engineering from M.S University Baroda and holds a post-graduate degree in Business Administration from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, University of Mumbai.

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Bernard J. West

Bernard J. West has two decades of experience building investor-backed education businesses across developed and frontier markets in Asia, Africa and America. His work in the sector spans K-12 education, post-secondary training and online learning. Currently, he is an advisor to Meraki Education.

Bernard served as the founding CEO of Tadrees Education Holding in KSA, a K-12 education platform sponsored by the Safanad and NCB. He grew the school platform to serve more than 12,000 students in less than 5 years. Bernard’s previous work includes managing and advising several leading education companies, school acquisitions and public/private partnerships.

Bernard West is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and of Howard University.

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Rohan Bhaskar

Rohan Bhaskar leads the Investments and Strategy department for the growing education portfolio of Meraki Education. He has over 15 years of commercial experience, primarily in real estate and education, including acquisitions, development management, capital raising, fund management and financial operations.

Rohan has closed transactions both internationally and in the GCC region worth more than AED 3.7bn (including UAE, UK, US, Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain and Singapore). He has led several sale and leaseback funding transactions for K-12 schools in the region and has been involved in both debt and equity capital initiatives.

Prior to Meraki Education, Rohan spent close to a decade in the region working at investment banking units in Qatar and Bahrain, and has also worked in India at PricewaterhouseCoopers and PepsiCo.

Rohan holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from S.V. Regional Engineering College, Surat, and holds a post graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, he is also a Chartered Financial analyst (CFA).

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Jonathan Locke

Jonathan graduated from the University of Cambridge with a PGCE in Mathematics and has extensive experience and a proven record of success. As Executive Principal at The British School of Barcelona and Headteacher at Leventhorpe School, he implemented strategic plans, led capital expansions, and earned outstanding ratings.

During his tenure in Barcelona, he achieved record A-level and GCSE results, exceptional university placements, and high satisfaction levels among students, parents, and staff.

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Paul Friend

Paul was the Principal at NLCS Jeju South Korea for 5 years, the first international branch campus of NLCS UK. NLCS Jeju has grown significantly in enrollment and has delivered excellent academic results year on year with several students admitted to Ivy league universities.

Prior to NLCS Jeju, Paul was the Headmaster at Dulwich College, Shanghai where he served six years. Under Paul’s leadership Dulwich College Shanghai was named as one of the top 3 schools in the world by the ‘Good Schools Guide’.

In each of his two previous schools Paul has managed a student population of 1300-1500 and a staff of more than 300.

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Fiona Cottam

Fiona joined Hartland International School in 2016 after an extremely successful tenure at GEMS Education. Initially joining Jumeirah College as Principal and CEO in 2009, she led the school to “Outstanding” in 2010.

Following that, Fiona held a number of senior roles in GEMS including Director of School and Senior Vice President New Schools. Prior to her roles in the UAE, Fiona was the Headteacher of Wilmington Grammar School for Boys in Kent, where she was the first female leader of the school in its history.

Fiona joined Hartland in 2016, and under her leadership, is now judged to be a “Very Good” school with several "Outstanding Features" in the latest inspection. Fiona is a graduate of University College Dublin and majored in Classical Music and English.

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