Coaching and Mentoring

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Today was my last day as Chairman of Infinitas Learning — and the end of an important chapter for me in educational publishing, following my earlier years as CEO of Sanoma Learning.

Those who know me well know how passionate I am about learning, and about the role organisations like Infinitas and Sanoma play in supporting learner outcomes and helping teachers in their vitally important work.

Following its acquisition by NPM Capital as lead investor, we have doubled the size of the business, including expanding into Portugal and Poland. Working on that growth — alongside the company’s digital and, more recently, its AI transformations — has been especially rewarding. There are enormous opportunities ahead to better support both teachers and students.

Most of all, I’ve valued the people. My colleagues at Infinitas and NPM Capital have been outstanding, and I’m genuinely grateful to have been part of the journey. I wish them every success for the future.

Over the past 15 years leading and chairing organisations in edtech and learning, I’ve accumulated hard-won experience in leadership, transformation, and what it takes to grow — both as an organisation and as a person. And I’m still very much learning. What continues to fascinate me is how much of leadership ultimately comes down to learning.

In the next phase, I want to put that experience to work more directly through coaching and mentoring, alongside my ongoing board commitments in edtech, including as Chairman of Ovivio.

Where I’d most like to help:
> Executive transition coaching — supporting leaders stepping into C-suite or senior roles for the first time.
> Strategic leadership — working through the real complexity of leading organisations through change.
> Personal effectiveness — helping leaders perform at their best.

For mentoring, my focus will naturally remain close to education and edtech (while avoiding conflicts with Infinitas or Ovivio). For coaching, the methodology is different, and I am keen to work more broadly across sectors — including healthtech and business services.

If any of this resonates, or if you simply want to catch up, feel free to reach out here or directly at: johnmartin@contentconnected.com

Looking forward to what comes next.

#learning #education #edtech #coaching #mentoring

Mentorship opportunity for emerging leaders

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Over the years, I’ve enjoyed working with younger leaders as they step into bigger roles.

I’ve been fortunate to have some great people in my life who gave me space to reflect and shared perspective. I’m grateful for their support and would like to help others to make progress in their careers.

I’m interested to support one or two developing leaders as a mentor or coach – a sparring partner and sounding board. If this resonates, or you know someone who might benefit, let’s connect.

Feel free to contact me at johnmartin@contentconnected.com

Is the teacher still the ‘killer app’ in the age of AI?

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AI in education is often framed as a battle between humans and machines. Based on conversations with teachers, founders and investors over the past year, I believe the real opportunities lie in partnership, not replacement.

The OECD’s Digital Education Outlook 2026 frames AI’s role in relation to teachers across three paradigms: replacement, complementarity and augmentation. But there’s a second often overlooked dimension: institutional embedding.  Moats in education aren’t built on technology or data alone, but on alignment with pedagogical goals, curricula, regulations & governance, procurement processes and professional practice.

1. Replacement — The Productivity Play

In replacement, AI automates tasks historically done by teachers. For example, grading, summarising texts, preparing lessons, generating worksheets and providing basic feedback loops.

This is where much of today’s AI attention is focused. Tasks that were once labour-intensive can now be executed quickly using general-purpose large language models.

However,  technology that replaces discrete tasks can be easy to replicate.  Application-layer companies that don’t control workflow, data or distribution potentially become interchangeable.

2. Complementarity — Enhancing the Teacher

Complementarity is where AI does not replace teachers but meaningfully enhances their capacity. For example:

  • turning classroom data into real-time insights
  • tracking student progress against goals
  • flagging risks and opportunities
  • designing targeted interventions

Here, teachers retain judgement while AI expands insights and  sharpens execution. The result? More impactful and stickier solutions because:

  • the solution integrates with daily workflows
  • the value is tied to teacher judgement, not automation
  • switching costs rise as the technology adapts to context
  • integration with existing systems (LMS, assessment frameworks, schedules) deepens.

In Europe especially, where education systems are fragmented by language, standards and national curriculum requirements, this tailored integration is the key to durability.

3. Augmentation — Supercharging the Teacher

Augmentation involves human–AI co‑evolution: AI learns from teacher feedback over time, adapts to their pedagogical style, and augments their professional practice in ways that produce outcomes neither could achieve alone.

In theory, this is the next frontier.

But the evidence suggests caution. Recent cross‑sector analyses have found that human–AI teams often underperform the better solo performer — not because AI is weak, but because synergy is hard to design and requires:

  • structured feedback loops
  • task‑specific modelling
  • data that is pedagogically meaningful
  • long‑term usage and refinement.

These conditions are relatively rare — and do not emerge automatically from generic chatbots. Consequently, many augmentation efforts risk failing before a few succeed spectacularly.

This layer will be hard to build, slow to monetise, but potentially transformative if it materialises. The Holy Grail, but not for the faint-hearted investor.

But even the most advanced augmentation tools will fail if they don’t address a deeper challenge: institutional embedding.

The Overlooked Dimension: Institutional Embedding

If replacement, complementarity and augmentation describe how AI interacts with the teacher, the moat is arguably how deeply a solution embeds in the system.

Edtech solutions thrive where:

  • curriculum alignment exists
  • pedagogical norms reinforce its use
  • there are many rules and regulations
  • procurement frameworks are understood and effective go-to-market capabilities are developed and in place
  • teacher support boosts adoption
  • governance structures (schools, districts, ministries) endorse and fund it

Know-how about working with institutions and alignment with standards determine durability.

This is particularly true in Europe, where:

  • education is governed nationally and regionally
  • language and curriculum diversity creates product differentiation challenges
  • procurement cycles are long and complex
  • teacher autonomy is the norm.

A solution that is embedded institutionally — even if technically less advanced — will often outlive and outperform one that is technically stronger but misses the expertise around the institutions it is designed to serve.

This is where real moats are built.

The next edtech winners won’t rely on algorithms alone.  They’ll succeed by understanding that the best AI doesn’t replace teachers or even just work for them. It works with them.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities?

Looking forward >>

Abysmal eXperience

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I’m taking a break from Twitter / X for a while, perhaps permanently.

I’ve become increasingly concerned by the role the platform is playing in the polarisation of society, the damage it is engendering in the relationships between some people holding different beliefs, and the negative impact it may be having on the mental health and well-being of (especially but not only) some young people.

I was particularly shocked by the way X was used to spread mis- and dis-information during the recent riots in the UK and appalled by the behaviour of its owner in further fanning those flames.  Unacceptable.

I used to enjoy Twitter as a place to get the latest news first on a wide range of topics, with the dialogue often driven by some of the wittiest minds.  These days, it’s mostly an abysmal experience. 

I believe the company needs to develop and deploy robust procedures around mis- and dis-information not only to maintain its licence to operate but also to re-build trust with readers and advertisers. It’s a societal issue and commercially imperative to X itself. 

In the meantime, you can still find me on LinkedIn for education & edtech and Instagram for cycling (or even better: in a school or on the road!). As an end-user, it seems to me that both Microsoft and Meta are currently doing a better job than X in acting responsibly to maintain public trust.

Homeschooling is becoming mainstream

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Homeschooling is becoming mainstream in many countries including the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, where demand is increasing and well-established legal frameworks are in place. In the USA about 3 million students (6% of total) were homeschooled in 2021-2022, an increase of 25% from 2019-2022 and a step increase from the trend growth rate of 2-8% per year since the 1990’s.

Why homeschool?

Research from the National Center for Education Statistics from 2022 shows that four of the five most popular reasons why parents decide to homeschool their children are social-cultural rather than academic:

  • concerns about the school environment (safety, drugs, peer pressure)
  • wanting to provide moral instruction
  • emphasis on a family life together
  • wanting to provide religious instruction.

In the meantime, growth in the market for education technology solutions, in part further stimulated by the pandemic, has ensured that good quality learning resources are available at scale in the home environment, thereby lowering this particular former barrier to homeschooling.

“Old school”, “new school”, “not school”?

The trend towards homeschooling reminded me of the scenario planning we had done at Sanoma about the future of education some 15 years ago, especially considering three main scenarios i) “old school” ii) “new school” and iii) “not school”. I had personally not expected the “not school” model to break through due to the high value-add of the professional teacher and the high economic and organisational implications for the family (typically requiring one parent to stay at home).  I had expected technology to underpin the further development of all three scenarios but had not foreseen the pandemic nor the increased polarisation of society at the time, which are surely factors that have made some impact on the growth of homeschooling.

I wonder what the trend to homeschooling might mean for homeschooled children and families? What impact will it have on public education systems and society as a whole?

Should we take the child out of the school, or bring the parent into the pedagogy?

School is in some ways already a limited intervention in the learning and development of a child, after all more than 80% of their time is spent outside of school. To what extent might approaches that encourage greater parental engagement in education help to support the learning of the child and help to remedy some of the social and cultural concerns that some parents have about schools?

It seems likely that more hybrid models might emerge, combining the professional and economic benefits of the school with the social and cultural engagement of the family.  Typically, an encouraging home environment, a high level of personal attention and more personalisation, tend to support learning.  Have we “outsourced” too much to schools? Especially in a world of increasing teacher shortages, might greater involvement of parents be part of the solution?