Leadership Team - ISA Liwan School

A Legacy of Leadership: Throughout his career, Qi Zhu has held pivotal roles that have shaped educational excellence:
Senior researcher at the School Culture Research Centre of Central China Normal University.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hubei Private Education Association.
Senior Strategic Adviser to the Hubei-Anhui Chamber of Commerce.
Honoured recipient of the National Confucius Medal for Education, recognising his outstanding contributions to the field.
A Voice in Educational Thought: Qi Zhu’s passion for education extends beyond the classroom into thought leadership and literature. His personal monograph, Poems Written in the Classroom, reflects his distinctive approach to blending creativity and education. His editorial contributions include One Hundred Poems for One Hundred Children and Achieve the Best Self, while his work on Oriental Culture Academy (Volumes 1 and 2) highlights his commitment to cultural enrichment.
Warm, insightful, and driven by purpose, Qi Zhu’s leadership is dedicated to cultivating a thriving, innovative educational community that empowers students and educators to achieve their fullest potential.

Has been teaching for 38 years, of which 25 years focus on IB education. He has worked in IB schools in Guangdong and Jiangsu successively, and served as the Deputy Head and Head of K-12 IB schools for nearly 10 years. He is also one of the first group of IBDP Examiners in China.
A research scholar at the President's Center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a research scholar on Presidential Leadership at the University College London School of Education.
In 2018, he won the China's Most Influential International School Principal, and in 2019, he won the Sina Education International Talent Training Demonstration Award.
Under his leadership, students have consistently achieved admission to top universities worldwide, including the UK's G5 universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, UCL, and Edinburgh) and Ivy League institutions like Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, NYU, and Johns Hopkins.

Having graduated from Southampton and subsequently completed his PGCE at University College Chichester (UCC).
David joins ISA bringing with him extensive teaching and management experiences, honed from over 25 years of service at prestigious private schools across the UK and Internationally.

A highly respected principal in Guangzhou, widely recognized by parents as a “visionary, grounded, and deeply committed leader.” Mr. Liao previously served as Party Secretary and Principal at municipal and provincial model high schools in Hubei. Selected through Sun Yat-sen University’s national principal recruitment program, he led its affiliated high school in Guangzhou for 15 years, during which the school ranked first in Haizhu District’s high school entrance exams for 13 consecutive years. He later served as Principal of a top school in Panyu District, achieving three consecutive years of top district rankings.
Mr. Liao is a postgraduate mentor in education, a university visiting professor, and a member of the Haizhu District Political Consultative Conference. His accolades include the “Outstanding Educator of Southern Guangdong” award and recognition as one of Guangzhou’s “Top 40 Contributors to Private Education over 40 Years.”
Mr. Liao has held leadership roles such as Vice President of the Guangdong Private Education Association, President of the Haizhu District Private Education Association, and President of the Haizhu District Chinese Language Teaching and Research Association. In June 2023, he was appointed Principal of the Domestic Division at ISA Wenhua Liwan School.

He holds a Master of Engineering from Wuhan University and is among the first cohort of Senior Secondary School Teachers in Guangdong Province. He served as a Research Fellow at the Guangdong Center for High-Quality Basic Education and worked as an expert in teacher education accreditation and national teacher training under the Ministry of Education. He also held adjunct professorships at South China Normal University and Guangzhou University.
He led the Guangzhou Distinguished Educators Studio and served as a government inspector and policy advisor for major municipal decisions. He was elected as a representative to the 13th and 14th Guangzhou Municipal People’s Congress. He mentored candidates in Guangdong’s “Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand” education expert development program and held leadership roles in several national and provincial academic societies.
He previously served as President of the Education Development Institutes in Liwan and Huadu Districts, where he led key provincial education planning projects. One of these projects was awarded the Second Prize for National Teaching Achievement in Basic Education by the Ministry of Education.

Holding two master’s degrees, Mr. Chris has over 20 years of extensive educational experience in Singapore, China, Dubai and Australia with a deep understanding of all IB programmes.
MYP/DP workshop leader, Site Visit Team Member, examiner for DP music and TOK, and International Schools Accreditor for CIS.
Held several leadership positions and has extensive experience in student academic support, pastoral care, curriculum design and educational leadership, parent communication and staff leadership. He also has extensive knowledge of positive psychology and the key elements of pastoral care and well-being for students.