CEO, Education Consultant and Founder of Tutors International, Adam Caller, and his colleagues will speak at the 2022 Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum in New York on 11th October. Here, we take a look into their background in the private tuition sector.

OXFORD, UK: Adam Caller, CEO of elite private tutoring company Tutors International, along with his colleagues, Chief Operations Officer, Victoria Gibbs, and account managers Joanna Dunckley Phillips and Nathaniel Hannan, will take to the stage on Tuesday 11th October at the New York Prestel and Partner Family Office Forum, in a 30-minute presentation on the advantages of specialist private tutoring. Mr Caller and his colleagues have considerable personal experience in the private tuition field and have all worked for the company, either as a private tutor themselves and/or on the managerial side, for at least a decade. Each one of the team is in an ideal position to be able to offer their ultra-high net-worth audience an authoritative insight into the advantages of high-end specialist private tuition.

Tutors International

Specialising in high-quality, personalised tuition, Tutors International has extensive experience placing outstanding private tutors in full-time residential positions world-wide. Enquiries from families are diverse: some require full-time, residential homeschooling, others might be seeking extra support alongside mainstream education for the child who is struggling, or for the child who needs to be extended academically. There are families who search for tutors able to incorporate extra-curricular expertise into their child’s academic curriculum or who wish to employ a tutor because their lifestyle makes for a difficult ‘fit’ with standard schooling. Tutors International is committed to finding the perfect tutor for the student and family and takes a great deal of trouble in recruiting for these placements. They are committed to finding not just the world’s best tutors, but the world’s best tutor for each specific child.

Adam Caller

Founder of Tutors International, Adam Caller, began teaching in 1987 while still an undergraduate at Glasgow University and received his teaching qualification from the University of York in 1991. He then taught in the private and state sectors for many years before a period as Project Manager on an ambitious eLearning platform. This was followed by a long period as a full-time private tutor to prestigious families in England and around the world. Mr Caller has received specialist training in the non-medicinal management of dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder and is very sensitive to children’s educational needs.

A well-respected educational consultant and private tutoring expert with over twenty five years in the private tutoring sector, Mr Caller has perfected the process for sourcing bespoke tutoring solutions for HNW and UHNW families, and delivering elite education solutions. Mr Caller comments:

“The Family Office Forum provides a platform for Tutors International to showcase the exceptional nature of what we do. It gives us, as a company, the opportunity to explain to our audience of UHNWIs why personalised private tuition has positioned itself as a significant alternative to traditional mainstream education within the context of educating for the future. There is now sound, quantifiable evidence of the benefits of individualised, one-to-one tutoring that isn’t purely anecdotal. Since Tutors International was founded in 1999, we have consistently observed students that have struggled in a traditional classroom environment setting thriving under specialist, one-to-one attention from our tutors. In the past, educational research hasn’t always been reflective of this.”

“In private tutoring, we see time after time how focusing on a child’s individual interests and talents, and adapting teaching styles and lesson planning to compliment them, results in a child who is more interested and eager to learn. Tutors International deals with clients who are looking for ‘outside the box’ thinkers when selecting their private tutors. They want someone who can expose their child to a wide range of topics, concepts and ideas from an early age, and use new advancements in technology to their learning advantage. They want someone who can ‘move with the times’, and this paves the way for some very exciting job opportunities for forward thinking tutors, worldwide”.

“I’m very much looking forward to sharing some of our personal experiences of private tutoring with the Family Office Forum audience whilst also being very careful to respect and protect the privacy of our families at all times”.

Victoria Gibbs

Ms Gibbs joined Tutors International in January 2011. She has several integral roles within the company, demonstrating her depth and breadth of aptitudes. She prepares the finances of TI’s international companies and financial transaction records in multiple currencies. Project management is also a central part of her role. She also conducts administrative functions for the domestic and international companies under the Tutors International umbrella, like Sea Tutors. She is also a Visa specialist and performs an HR role within the company. She sheds light on how her role has changed over her years at Tutors International:

“My job has changed enormously in the last 11 years. As the company has grown and developed, so has the complexity of my role.  When I started out, we only had three companies to contend with: two in the UK and in America.  Now, we have multiple UK companies, one in the US, one in Hong Kong, one in Canada and Holland, and, until recently, we were also running one in Singapore.  In addition, we have explored both the Chinese and Japanese markets”. 

“Operating in so many jurisdictions has been a steep learning curve. As Chief Operations Officer I have had to redesign various admin systems and processes to deal with larger volumes of tutors, as well as responding to new legislation from within the UK”.

Ms Gibbs also expands on why she believes Tutors International fills a specific niche in the education sector and why, for many families, private tutoring is the best educational option:

“We have seen troubled children get back on track, school refusers embrace their learning, and teenagers achieving goals – both personal and academic - that they never thought possible.  All the work we do is in pursuit of these moments, and knowing that Tutors International makes such a positive difference on these young lives makes all the hard work and effort worth it.”

Nathaniel Hannan

A graduate of Notre Dame and Oxford universities, Nathaniel Hannan began his teaching career at high schools in the Washington DC area, and has been working for Tutors International for sixteen years. Having lived and worked with privately-educated students in thirteen countries, his expertise in the private tutoring field is second to none. He now concentrates on homeschooling students who have special educational needs.

In his role as Education Manager at Tutors International, Mr Hannan ensures the verification of candidate credentials and references and coordinates the steps necessary to place tutors successfully. When asked why he prefers to work as a private tutor rather than in mainstream education Mr Hannan responded:

“I prefer to work as a private tutor because of the significant pedagogical advantages possible in one-to-one tuition. Personal attention enables me to understand how my student best learns; enabling my students to achieve their goals is tremendously satisfying. In my opinion, private tutoring is best for many students because each student's individual needs and talents are always not best served in a group-learning setting. Private tuition enables each student to flourish in ways impossible to accomplish from a one-size-fits-most approach”.

Mr Hannan, who previously taught in a private school in Washington DC, firmly believes that the professionalism required in a private tutoring arrangement is very different to that required in a classroom:

“For all kinds of child protection reasons, being a school teacher requires a certain emotional distance. In a family environment that changes; it’s important to be able to develop a sincere rapport with a family. I also believe that an important part of a tutor’s role is to help students find out that their lives can have profound meaning separate from the family wealth that often surrounds them.”

Joanna Dunckley Phillips

Joanna Dunckley Phillips has worked as a tutor for Tutors International for over a decade. Her position as Account Manager involves looking after specific contracts and liaising with Clients and Tutors to ensure the smooth running of the close relationships this kind of residential tutoring engenders. Ms Dunckley Phillips shares her thoughts about transitioning from the tutoring side of the business to the account management side:

“I have worked as a tutor for Tutors International for over 10 years now so I know the process from the ‘other side’ very well. I have been fortunate enough to travel in many positions and even organised a three-month round-the-world itinerary with two of my students. As a big believer in the learning experiences afforded by the exposure to different places, cultures and languages, the opportunity to travel is another of the huge benefits of having a private tutor. Whilst moving, the more formal classroom hours are few and far between; the learning becomes more experiential and location-oriented. These experiences have enabled me to understand the dynamics that form between tutors, their charges and the clients. This allows me to better support the team that are on the ground (parents/clients and tutors) working with the child/ren.”

Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum New York 2022

The 2022 New York Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum will take place on the 11^th and 12th of October at Harvard Club of New York City. Tutors International will feature in the ‘Learn from Peers’ section of the programme on the 11^th October at 3 pm. If you would like to hear more from Mr Caller and the Tutors International team and learn more about the private tuition sector, you can book a place at the conference by following the instructions found in this link.