Our People
Cognition Education Management
Rachel Morriss Jarvis
Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand
Bio
Rachel joined Cognition Learning Group in 2016 and leads Cognition Education in Australia and New Zealand. Rachel has held senior roles within both corporate and charitable sectors, providing marketing, sponsorship, communications and public relations expertise. Formerly a Marketing and Development Director for Auckland’s largest multi-arts event, she also spent several years in a number of marketing roles within New Zealand Post Group and the technology and retail industries.
Ian Ormiston
Managing Director, International Development
Bio
Ian joined Cognition Learning Group in 2017 having gained extensive commercial management experience from roles across New Zealand, Australia, Asia, the UK and the United States, having previously worked for NZ Dairy Group, Carter Holt Harvey, Les Mills International and Magic Memories. Based out of our Head Office in Auckland, Ian leads International Development. Ian has had considerable success creating new business and improving revenue and profitability in existing ones with extensive experience in sales, marketing, business development, supply chain management and successfully leading small and large cross-functional teams.
Tracey Newman
Managing Director, United Kingdom
Bio
Tracey joined Cognition Learning Group in 2023 and leads Cognition Education in the UK. Tracey is an experienced executive director and has worked across the private, public and charity sectors, prior to joining Cognition Learning group. Tracey held director roles at AQA (an assessment organisation), The Charity Commission and an ombudsman scheme. She also spent several years in senior leadership positions at O2 (a UK mobile telecom provider.) Tracey’s roles have spanned across functional areas that have covered: customer delivery/experience; sales; business development; operations; marketing and regulation.
Dr. Lindsey Conner
Education Director Asia – Pacific
Bio
Lindsey brings a wealth of creative experience in leading curriculum development and assessment, supporting education systems and teacher education development in Asian and Pacific countries. She started as a Play Centre Supervisor, became a secondary science and mathematics teacher (and member of a school board), moving on to leading and researching teacher education in New Zealand and Australia. Her work spans multiple disciplinary areas and has focussed more recently on the power of integrating learning areas to build learners’ capabilities. In addition, she leads educators, collaborative teams and leadership groups to develop effective ways to infuse and apply appropriate and culturally congruent technology for more effective outcomes.
Lindsey has undertaken consultancy work for New Zealand Universities (Academic Quality Assurance), Fiji Higher Education Commission, National Institute of Educational Research (Japan), SEAMEO (South-East Asian Ministries of Education, 11 countries) and UNESCO. She has led multiple projects in New Zealand and across Pacific nations, helping teachers grow in their understanding about meeting student needs and transforming lives through education. Her inspirational “can do” approach within senior executive teams has enabled changes to strategic planning, digital solutions for educational services, extended external relations, improved quality assurance, augmented benefits of internationalization and effective management of human resources.
Her life goal is to find multiple ways to enhance human experiences through education. She strongly believes that there are powerful possibilities for public good when educators partner with communities to create and evaluate educational solutions that are culturally appropriate.
Clare Grundy
Director Programmes, UK
Bio
Clare joined Cognition Education UK in January 2021 after a 20-year career with the British Council, having worked in the Middle East and East Africa. She brings a wealth of experience in successfully leading education programmes for both the private and public sectors and is now based in the UK leading our programmes portfolio in EMEA.
Cognition Learning Group Leadership
Tina Lucas
Chief Executive Officer
Bio
Tina joined Cognition Learning Group in 2016 having previously completed successful tenures as CEO of Aspire-Education, Managing Director at Nord Anglia Education PLC and the founder of STEMtech Education. Tina has an extensive track record spanning 30 years growing award-winning education, professional services, EdTech and digital learning organisations across Europe, the Middle East, Australasia and Asia. Under her stewardship, the company has seen rapid expansion into Australia, the UK and the Pacific Island’s.
Sean Ryan
Chief Financial Officer
Bio
Sean Ryan joined as the Cognition Learning Group CFO following his role as Country & Finance Director of Australia. Previously, he had positions within the Group including Financial Controller and Commercial Manager. Sean’s experience in the international and national education sector, as well as auditing, analysis, management accounting and acquisitions, brings a diverse range of expertise to his role with Cognition Learning Group.
Dr. Arran Hamilton
Group Director, Education
Bio
Arran joined Cognition Learning Group in 2017 to lead the development and transition of our Visible Learning Plus business before taking up a position as Group Director, Strategy and more recently as Group Director, Education. He is an accomplished education-sector senior leader and researcher with more than 15 years’ experience working in some of the top educational consultancies in the world. He previously held senior positions at Cambridge Assessment, Nord Anglia Education, Education Development Trust (formerly CfBT) and the British Council. Arran is now based out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
