Dr Nicholas Breakwell is the Chief Executive Officer of St Nicholas Montessori College Ireland, a deeply experienced education leader and entrepreneur having been the CEO/COO in four successful digital education companies. As a founding partner and Executive Dean at Hibernia College Ireland, he created the company’s e-learning development and delivery strategy, winning numerous e-learning and digital awards in the U.K. and Ireland. He successfully led the company to secure teaching council accreditation for a new national blended learning programme which is now the largest provider of newly qualified teachers in Ireland.

Dr. Breakwell also established Hibernia College UK, a blended learning initial teacher education provider in England which partnered with 5 leading UK Universities to solve the recruitment challenge in STEM teacher recruitment. Having developed a highly successful national online maths and science professional development programme, Dr. Breakwell led the sale of HCUK to TES Global. The company continues to flourish as the TES Institute.

As part of his work, Dr. Breakwell has secured accreditations and validations from the NCTL (UK), QQI, OFSTED, CIMA and numerous global Universities including University of the Western Cape, Peking University, Sechenov Moscow First State Medical, University of Vienna, University of Stellenbosch, Plymouth University, University of East London, Canterbury Christ Church University, Birmingham City University and others.

Previously, Dr. Breakwell worked as Research Scientist and University Lecturer in Neuroscience and Psychology at Trinity College Dublin and Dublin Business School. He also established a successful anatomy and physiology online toolkit for Schools of Nursing in England and Ireland. More recently he established the investor backed Graduate Teaching Scheme – an online platform to recruit graduates into the teaching profession.

Dr. Breakwell has built and delivered successful multi-stakeholder national partnerships, has worked with big Pharma including Pfizer and Novartis and spoken at the Worlds’ leading Universities including, MIT, Harvard, TCD. He has secured angel, venture capital, and private equity funding, EU FP5 and FP7 funding, UK DfES government funding, corporate sponsorship and charity donations, led due diligence processes and completed earnouts.

At the forefront of academic digital programme development in Ireland, he has managed the development and delivery of 5000+ hours of accredited learning, developed Ireland’s first MOOC, spoken at numerous conferences and published elearning research.

Now, as the CEO of St. Nicholas Montessori, Dr. Breakwell is leading the development of the organisation into a leading teacher training provider, early years, primary and post-primary education provider and the expansion of the organisation into allied disciplines where the benefits of Montessori methodologies are also badly needed.