Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
What Does It Take to Lead 53 Million Students? 📚🌏
We were honoured to co-host Dr Iwan Syahril, author, Senior Advisor of the Global Institute of Teach For All, former Director General at Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and former G20 Education Chair, for a compelling conversation on his book, Students, Students, Students! The Human Journey in Leadership and System Transformation.
Dr Iwan knows the challenge of education reform intimately. As former Director General at Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, he led the Merdeka Belajar (Emancipated Learning) reforms across 17,000 islands and 552 decentralised local governments, reaching over 50 million students, 420,000 schools and 3.3 million teachers, with proficiency gains of up to 33%.
The conversation explored why meaningful transformation is often difficult to achieve and what it takes to lead change across complex systems. Dr Iwan highlighted the importance of understanding how different groups respond to reform, from early adopters to late adopters and laggards, and how leaders can engage each group differently to build momentum for system-wide change.
Reflecting on the human dimension of transformation, he emphasised that lasting reform requires more than well-designed policies. It demands trust, purpose, humility and the ability to bring people along through uncertainty and change.
Dr Iwan concluded with a simple but powerful reminder: lasting change is not won through policy alone, it is won by changing hearts and minds.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for this engaging and deeply insightful conversation. We look forward to continuing to host conversations that matter.
🌱 Empowering Leaders, Advancing Societies.
What Does It Take to Lead 53 Million Students? 📚🌏
We were honoured to co-host Dr Iwan Syahril, author, Senior Advisor of the Global Institute of Teach For All, former Director General at Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and former G20 Education Chair, for a compelling conversation on his book, Students, Students, Students! The Human Journey in Leadership and System Transformation.
Dr Iwan knows the challenge of education reform intimately. As former Director General at Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, he led the Merdeka Belajar (Emancipated Learning) reforms across 17,000 islands and 552 decentralised local governments, reaching over 50 million students, 420,000 schools and 3.3 million teachers, with proficiency gains of up to 33%.
The conversation explored why meaningful transformation is often difficult to achieve and what it takes to lead change across complex systems. Dr Iwan highlighted the importance of understanding how different groups respond to reform, from early adopters to late adopters and laggards, and how leaders can engage each group differently to build momentum for system-wide change.
Reflecting on the human dimension of transformation, he emphasised that lasting reform requires more than well-designed policies. It demands trust, purpose, humility and the ability to bring people along through uncertainty and change.
Dr Iwan concluded with a simple but powerful reminder: lasting change is not won through policy alone, it is won by changing hearts and minds.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for this engaging and deeply insightful conversation. We look forward to continuing to host conversations that matter.
🌱 Empowering Leaders, Advancing Societies.
