Brian Liston.
My own schooling spanned about as many models as you can fit into one upbringing: a small community primary, a large traditional secondary, the International Baccalaureate at an international school in Manila, a degree at University College Dublin, and a Master of Finance at MIT. I had excellent teachers throughout, and I value the experience as a whole. Seeing that many different schools from the inside shaped how I think about building one.
But the skills that have mattered most in my life were not learned in classrooms. I learned them by building. Taking on complex problems with real constraints, real consequences, and incomplete information. That's where judgment forms, and where you learn to operate under pressure.
My career has centered on that kind of work. I co-founded zerohash, a financial infrastructure company operating across CFTC- and SEC-regulated markets that has processed billions of dollars in transactions and holds more than 50 regulatory licenses. At Revolut, I built AI-driven underwriting systems for lending. At Pachama, I led the development of AI models for carbon measurement. Across these companies, I've raised over $100 million, hired hundreds of people, and learned how to build and license complex, regulated institutions from the ground up, which turns out to be most of what opening a school actually requires.
After moving to Ericeira, the education gap became clear. What schools emphasize and what the real world demands are not aligned. Projects, athletics, and the arts are treated as secondary, when in practice they are where many of the most important capabilities are developed.
Telos is built to close that gap. Not by rejecting academic rigor, but by expanding it. This is the standard I'm building to. This is the school my own children will attend.