Management Committee
Chapter 26
The Global Team & Advisors
100 campuses with 60,000 students. In 2012, Chris co-founded Avenues: The World School, now one of the largest private schools in New York City with campuses in São Paulo, Shenzhen, and Silicon Valley as well. Chris also built the two Whittle School & Studios campuses in Shenzhen and Suzhou. He is one of the few entrepreneurs to found not one but two “unicorns,” the Silicon Valley moniker for entities realizing market valuations of over $1B. Inspired by his own, year- long, post-college circuit of the globe and by the 180 full-ride, 5-year scholarships he funded which included a year abroad, Chris conceived and is full-time Executive Chairman of Baret Scholars. Education: University of Tennessee Languages: English Birthplace: Etowah, Tennessee Lived in: United States Special Book: Magister Ludi , Herman Hesse
School in Shanghai. And, then, on to a global leadership role at Whittle School & Studios, where she managed a team of 30 members in the US and China (including 4 CPAs, 2 hedge fund managers, a nuclear energy scientist, a physicist, Ivy League admission officers, and a presidential special assistant!). She led the creation of Whittle’s 1,000-student campus in Shenzhen. In her spare time, believing students should not be judged on mere academic excellence, she cofounded a multi-city art organization. Education: Columbia University, MPA; Beijing Foreign Language University, MA and BA Languages: Mandarin, English Birthplace: Nanjing, China Lived in: China, United States Special Book: The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage , Todd Gitlin
CHRIS WHITTLE, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN BASED : CONNECTICUT Raised in a small town along the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, he’s the one who recommended the Baret Fellowship 73-mile trek on the Appalachian Trail! Early on, Chris enjoyed building things, constructing forts and cabins with young friends in the woods they would play in. And build he did. In his 50-year career, Chris founded and led 5 education
LI JING, DEAN, PROGRAM ( FELLOWSHIPS / ADVISING ) BASED : BEIJING Twenty years after she taught her first English class at China’s most renowned high school, Renda Fuzhong (RDFZ) in Beijing, students of that class still call her for all manner of advice, whether they should marry, take a post, or move to another city. To them, she will always be “Laoshi,” translated as “old teacher,” no matter one’s age, as a show of respect. And teaching will always be at the heart of her career. She rose quickly at RDFZ: by her mid-20s she managed its extensive international connections, including its membership in G30, the organization of the top 30 schools in the world. She created and oversaw more than 40 outbound and inbound international programs to 30+ country destinations annually for its 4,600+ student body. Soon she was recruited to become Secretary General for China's most highly regarded bilingual school, YK Pao
IN JULY of 2022, Chris Whittle, the earli- est (and by far the oldest!) member of our founding team, penned Version 1 of the plan for Baret Scholars. Its early, descrip- tive code name was GlobalGap. We came together one by one, meeting for the first time face-to-face as a full group at a plan- ning retreat in İstanbul in the past sum- mer of 2023. Though serendipity played a role in how we met, the organizational design of Baret Scholars was intentional and careful. From inception, we knew that trust in us and in our international expe- riences would be the core of our appeal to students and their families. We knew the only way to manage our global opera- tional requirements was by mirroring the multi-cultural mission of Baret. Our strength comes from the warp and weft of our differences and commonalities. Not one of us grew up in the same city. A dream come true for Zoom, we live on five continents and hail from over a dozen countries. Rivaling an Emirates flight crew, we speak over fifteen languag- es, including a couple of dead ones, and we are learning many more. Our careers are a mosaic of art and construction, television and investment banking, publishing and fashion, education and cosmetics, con- sulting and engineering–we even have a budding psychoanalyst. What binds us together is a belief in the Baret mission: that today’s cultural
literacy is only achieved by knowing both your home country and the wider world. All of us are internationalists, having lived and worked in an average of 3 countries. As a group, we’ve been fortunate to see the transforming effects of powerful ed- ucation. Amongst us are graduates of the world’s most highly regarded universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, and Stanford. We’ve not just gone to strong educational institutions, but founded and managed them too, including large and admired schools in NYC, Shenzhen, Lahore, and São Paulo. And we’ve been professionally honed by leading global companies such as J. P. Morgan, Bain, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Lazard, and BCG. As collaborative as we are, there is a competitive streak in Baret too. Our team sports national and college level athletes in tennis, swimming and golf. Meet us below and watch, by further announcements, as we grow to over 50 in the months ahead, all to support our Baret Scholars.
and media endeavors, employing over 8,000
team members. Founded in his college apartment, Whittle Communications grew to be one of America’s top 100 media companies, publishing Esquire and broadcasting daily to 8,000,000 students through the Channel One network, with Anderson Cooper as its first anchor. In the mid- 1990s, along with former Yale University President Benno Schmidt, Chris pioneered the charter school movement, establishing over
jing.li@baretscholars.org
If you’re interested in joining our Global Team, reach out to us at info@baretscholars. org for more information.
chris.whittle@baretscholars.org
140 BARET SCHOLARS
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THE BARET TEAM & ADVISORS
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