About

Barry O'Callaghan,

Chairman and CEO of Rise Global

Barry O’ Callaghan is a visionary in the world of education. Mr. O’Callaghan has spent almost two decades driving the creation, development and distribution of some of the world’s most widely-used education products and cutting-edge technologies for the classroom and the broader K-12 market. Since 1999, he has been guiding innovative and industry leading-efforts in education throughout the world. From founding Riverdeep to building Houghton Mifflin Harcourt  and more recently Rise Global, he has been passionately promoting the need to offer 21st Century learners more dynamic, current and relevant learning experiences.

Initially Mr O’Callaghan served as Chief Executive Officer of Riverdeep, a company that revolutionized the way in which technology could work in tandem with traditional pedagogical methods. Under Mr. O’Callaghan’s leadership, Riverdeep went public on NASDAQ in 2000 and acquired seven companies including Edmark, The Learning Company and Broderbund. He then took Riverdeep private in 2003 and used it as the platform to build Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the world’s largest K12 publisher. In 2007 he founded Rise China which, while successfully sold to Bain Capital in 2013, was the predecessor to Rise Global, his latest global, education venture. Prior to launching Riverdeep, Mr. O’Callaghan worked in the Equity Capital Market divisions of Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse in various locations including London, Hong Kong and New York. Mr. O’Callaghan is a law graduate from Trinity College, Dublin

Lord Puttnam of Queensgate,

C.B.E.

David Puttnam is the chair of Atticus Education, an online education company based in Ireland. Atticus, through a unique arrangement with BT Ireland, delivers interactive seminars on film and a variety of other subjects to educational institutions around the world.

David spent thirty years as an independent producer of award-winning films including The Mission, The Killing Fields, Local Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Memphis Belle. His films have won ten Oscars, 25 Baftas and the Palme D’Or at Cannes. From 1994 to 2004 he was Vice President and Chair of Trustees at the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) and was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship in 2006.

He retired from film production in 1998 to focus on his work in public policy as it relates to education, the environment, and the creative and communications industries. In 1998 he founded the National Teaching Awards, which he chaired until 2008, also serving as the first Chair of the General Teaching Council from 2000 to 2002. From July 2002 to July 2009 he was president of UNICEF UK, playing a key role in promoting UNICEF’s advocacy and awareness objectives. In October 2013 David stepped down as Chancellor of the Open University a post he was appointed to in 2006, following ten years as Chancellor of The University of Sunderland.

He is Digital Champion for Ireland, President of the Film Distributors’ Association, Chairman of the TSL Advisory Board, Chair of the Academic Board, Pearson College, a UNICEF Ambassador, and Adjunct Professor of Film Studies and Digital Humanities at University College Cork.

He was Deputy Chairman of Channel 4 Television from 2006 until January 2012, and Chairman of North Music Trust (The Sage Gateshead) from 2007 until November 2012 . He was founding Chair of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and chaired both the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and the National Film and Television School for ten years. He has also served as a trustee of the Tate Gallery, the Science Museum, the Thomson Foundation and many other organisations.

In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill, having performed the same role on the 2002 Communications Bill.

He has been Chairman of two Hansard Society Commission Reports on the relationship between Parliament and the Public and has served as a non-executive director on a number of public companies.

David was awarded a CBE in 1982, a knighthood in 1995 and was appointed to the House of Lords in 1997. In France he was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1985, becoming an Officer in 1992, and a Commander in 2006. He has been the recipient of more than 40 honorary degrees from Universities in the UK and overseas.

He was most recently appointed the UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma.

Greg Dumont,

Head of Corporate Development at Rise Global

Greg Dumont is Head of Corporate Development at Rise Global. Greg is accomplished senior executive with more than two decades of experience leading corporate-wide strategic growth initiatives with accountabilities to Investors, Founders, CEOs and Boards of Directors. A creative and dynamic leader, with a record of consistently delivering outstanding growth and return on investment through exemplary business innovation, corporate development, operations, finance and human capital management expertise

He is Board Chairman and CEO of Forest North America, a value added 3PL services organization supporting large scale not for profit organizations throughout North America. Leveraging his experience in the media and education sectors, as well as his extensive business development experience, he is capitalizing on the core service strengths of the organization and expanding vendor and customer partnerships aligned to both Forest and customer growth initiatives.

In addition, he is the Founder and Managing Partner of Revolve Advisors LLC, a boutique strategic, operational, financial advisory and investment management firm. Established in 2012, Revolve leverages experienced executives for impactful strategic advisory projects and has built a client list of high growth companies within media and public and private education, as well as serving on boards of selective companies.

Prior to joining Forest and establishing Revolve Advisors, Greg was Executive Vice President of Operations, Strategy and Corporate Development of global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt from March 2003 through January 2012 where he was a regular speaker at industry events. With extensive experience in public accounting, entertainment and media, and education sectors, Greg led the financial diligence, and educational technology, organization and product technology integration of Houghton Mifflin’s $3.5 billion merger with Riverdeep in 2006 and all aspects of the operational diligence and integration of the combined Company’s $4 billion carry-on acquisition of Harcourt in 2007, resulting in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s current position as one of the world’s largest K-12 education companies.

During his 10 years with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and predecessor companies, Greg oversaw all aspects of finance, operations (including supply chain, procurement and information technology), product strategy and business development. An innovative executive with deep strategic planning, operational improvement and cost optimization experience, Greg’s balance of financial acumen, operational pragmatism and strategic focus lead to more than $100 million in operational cost improvements and $50+ million of new business expansion, including implementation of an educationally focused consumer and business to business expansion strategy and leading several significant global mergers and acquisitions transactions.

Prior to joining Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Greg served as Vice President, Finance & Audit for Vivendi Universal leading mergers & acquisitions and audit activities in the Americas, in music, media & filmed entertainment, publishing and ecommerce sectors.

Greg began his career in Public Accounting as a Senior Manager at Price Waterhouse and PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York and London and is a CPA.

Garrett Power,

Chief Operating Officer / Chief Financial Officer, Rise Global

In September 2011, Garrett joined the Rise Group as Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for implementing the RISE strategy across Asia. This role, based in our Singapore office, includes managing the day to day activities of the existing businesses in the Group and the identification and execution of expanded initiatives in new territories.
During the period from 2004 to 2011, Garrett held a number of senior positions within Houghton Mifflin Harcourt International Publishers (HMH), the world’s largest K-12 publisher. His last position was Head of International Mergers & Acquisitions with primary focus on expanding the HMH traditional US focused business into newer emerging markets. As part of this role Garrett worked on transactions in Latin America, Asia, Europe and Australasia. Garrett first joined the HMH Group as the Chief Financial Officer of the Riverdeep Group. Garrett had responsibility for managing the financial and operational aspects of the US$300m+ business. This included the Finance, Tax, Treasury, Legal and Operations functions.
Prior to working for the Riverdeep/HMH Group, Garrett was a Director at KPMG Transaction Services in London and Dublin. This role involved leading multi-functional teams assisting a variety of clients to undertake cross border transactions. Garrett is a Fellow of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

David Clayton,

Director, Rise Global

Until June 2012, David Clayton was Group Director of Strategy and Corporate Development for the Sage Group plc. Sage is a global provider of business software applications and services to small and medium sized enterprises. The company is ranked around 80 in the FTSE 100 with a market capitalisation of around £3.5bn. David assumed this full time Executive role in October 2007 and was a member of the plc Board. He was originally appointed to the Board in June 2004 as a non-Executive Director and also served as a member of the Audit Committee and the Remuneration Committee, in addition to being Senior Independent non-Executive Director.
Prior to joining the Sage Board in 2004, Mr. Clayton was Managing Director and Head of European Technology Research at Credit Suisse First Boston in London. In this role he was responsible for building and leading a team of equity analysts who provided research coverage of companies such as SAP, Nokia, Alcatel, Siemens, Philips, Cap Gemini among many others. The team was ranked first by Institutional Investor magazine for its research each year from 2000 until 2004. David’s own sector coverage was software. He joined CSFB via their acquisition of BZW in 1997. Having left CSFB in March 2004, in addition to the role at Sage, David also served on the Boards of Riverdeep, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and two small private software businesses. David is currently non-Executive Chairman of SDL plc having previously been Chairman of the Audit Committee, SDL is a world leader in language based Global Information Management. He is Chairman of market leading email archiving vendor, Cryoserver. David sits on the Board of Rise China as an independent non-executive Director and serves on the Alumni Advisory Committee for the business school at Sheffield University

David Mulville,

Senior Technology Consultant at Rise Global

In January 2021, David joined Rise Global as Senior Technology Consultant to drive the global technology strategy of the business.

Since its formation in 2011, David has been Chairman of Dataflow International (DFI), a European and MENA based software and services group focused on the development of technology and content solutions for the education and healthcare sectors. DFI’s education clients include international and regional publishers, ministries of education and end users.

David’s role includes the development of DFI’s technology strategy, oversight of all group finance functions, sales and business development. DFI’s portfolio of projects spans Europe, the USA, Asia and multiple projects across the MENA region.

David has over 20 years senior leadership experience in educational technology. He was one of the founding executives of Riverdeep, a successful Irish based e-Learning business and its successor business EMPGI.

During this period, he played key roles in the company’s IPO on the NASDAQ and Irish stock markets as well the integration of seven different educational technology company acquisitions.

Prior to his career with Riverdeep, David had a successful career in corporate finance and securities regulation. He holds a degree in law from University College, Dublin.