The EFL Magazine Podcast

Barry O'Callaghan is an accomplished Irish business executive and financier. Currently serving as the Chairman and CEO of Rise Global, he has left an indelible mark on the corporate landscape. Prior to his role at Rise Global, Barry held the position of CEO at Riverdeep, where he orchestrated a remarkable transformation.Under Barry's leadership, Riverdeep, initially a mod

Ben Shearon is a retired university English teacher based in Sendai. He was born in Germany and grew up in Spain but claims to be British. After living in Spain, the UK, and China, he moved to Japan in 2000 and has been here ever since. In 2013 Ben started the RetireJapan website to share information in English about personal finance, investing, and retirement for people living in

Marek Kiczkowiak has been in ELT since 2009. He has CELTA, DELTA and a PhD. He currently runs an educational company, Academic English Now, where he helps PhD students and researchers write research papers. He grew the company from 0 to 70k/month and now shares his insights with English teachers who want to start a widely profitable teaching English business.Alex HormoziBlue Ocean

Born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1966, Basil moved to Canada in 1969. After graduating from the University of Toronto, he pursued Asian Studies at the Graduate School of the University of British Columbia. Since coming to Japan in 1992, Basil has been extensively involved in education, serving as principal of an English language school, materials developer, teacher trainer, radio hos

Originally from the UK, Founder Zoe Smith created Mexico City based BE School when she saw a gap in the market for English Programs that were based specifically on growing Business Skills and Confidence for Mexican Professionals. BE School works with dozens of International corporations with customized courses tailored for individual and industry needs; the ethos is to enhance conf

In 2007, Sakurako Oshima set up her own company specialising in English education for adults. Her mission is to provide powerful support to as many people as possible through lessons, consulting, coaching, and books in order to achieve the respective goals of various people who need English, such as those who use English for work, those who want to be stationed abroad, those who wa

After nearly 30 years of intensive experience in every aspect of test preparation, Mike Bergin knows what works in tutoring and what doesn’t. A nationally recognized leader in education, Mike founded Chariot Learning in 2009 to deliver on the promise of what truly transformative individualized education can and should be. Besides overseeing Chariot Learning’s national programs,

Jarrad Merlo is the principal consultant of Nouns n' Verbs.com where he helps schools, publishers and companies digitise their language learning and testing products, content, assessment, media, marketing, teaching and strategy. He co-founded and spent the last ten years building an EdTech company called E2 that specialises in B2C and B2B high-stakes English exam prep that has

Nicola Prentis started off in ELT as a teacher, bouncing around the world wherever she most wanted to go at the time: Czech Republic, Turkey, Australia, Spain, Thailand. She started writing EFL materials as a way to transition into working from her sofa and settled in Spain around 2012. Once she realised she could sell ideas to magazines, she branched out into writing about travel,

Jeff Johnson made the break into online teaching almost 2 years years ago and hasn't looked back since. By using his experience in education and aptitude for strategic planning, Jeff has carved out a thriving business within 2 years by being focused, measured, patient and on message with his offering. Jeff has hired a teacher recently, and is seeing his business continue to gr