When Nadim Nsouli MBA’97D, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Inspired Education Group, returned to INSEAD in July 2026 for the MBA’26J graduation at the Château de Fontainebleau, preparing his speech gave him a rare opportunity to pause and look back.
We spoke with him about how INSEAD helped him change direction, how education became the idea he could not let go of, and what adversity taught him about building what matters.
Before INSEAD, Nadim was a lawyer in the United States. He wanted to move to Europe and into business and needed the confidence, knowledge and international network to make that transition.
“INSEAD was a turning point,” he said. “It was not the destination. It was a bridge.”
After graduating in 1997, Nadim moved into investment banking and then private equity. Through investments in education, he came to know the sector closely and fell in love with it. He saw excellent schools around the world, but few organisations operating at scale or sharing expertise and best practices.
He began imagining a global education group that could bring leading schools together and help each one become stronger. Yet the model needed to grow one school at a time, while his partners were focused on larger investments.
During this period, Nadim and his family experienced a devastating loss when his three-year-old daughter, Lyla, passed away from a rare and incurable brain cancer.
Nadim stepped down from his role, took time away, and decided to pursue the education project independently.
“Building gave my pain somewhere to go,” he told the graduates. “It did not cure the grief. Nothing cures that. But it gave me a way to keep moving forward.”
In 2013, he began in South Africa. He signed an agreement to acquire a school before raising the money, then secured the capital to complete the transaction. That leap became the foundation of Inspired Education Group.
Thirteen years later, Inspired educates more than 95,000 students, from Kindergarten to Year 13, in 125 schools across 30 countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Italy and Mexico. Around 2,500 students benefit from scholarships.
Its schools share proven educational practices while remaining rooted in their local cultures. Inspired’s model is built around three pillars: academic excellence, sport and the performing and creative arts. Together, they help students achieve strong results, develop confidence, embrace their individuality, and fulfil their potential.
For Nadim, education is about hope: the belief that children can build a better future. In every campus, classroom, sports field and theatre, he asks whether his own children would be happy there, whether they would learn and whether they would feel inspired.
Nadim arrived at INSEAD with a plan. What followed was a path he could not have anticipated, shaped by loss, resilience, and the courage to pursue work that mattered deeply to him. INSEAD gave him the confidence, skills and international network to change direction. Today, the vision he chose to pursue creates opportunity and hope for thousands of children.
His experience has taught him to listen to the issues that keep drawing him back. “What makes you impatient? What excites you? Whether it is an injustice, a social challenge or a business problem, what you cannot stop thinking about may point to the path you should pursue.”
In his commencement speech, Nadim concluded by reminding the graduates that their INSEAD degree was “one of the best keys in the world” and urging them to use it with purpose: “Use it not merely to become successful, but to become useful.”
It was a fitting reflection of his own journey — and of how pursuing what matters can transform success into meaningful impact for others.
Watch Nadim Nsouli’s address to the MBA’26J graduating class.
