Dr. Peter McLaughlin

Dr Peter McLaughlin formally joined CHIREC International School, Hyderabad, India as CEO in November 2019 when it became a member of the Cognita global family of international schools.

A respected academician, historian, author and educationist, prior to joining CHIREC, Dr McLaughlin had been associated with renowned organizations, including The Doon School as Headmaster and Max India Group as CEO of Max Learning Limited.

He has vast experience of over four decades in the education field in the UK, Africa, the Middle East and India in various roles, from school and university teaching to Headmaster, Principal, member and official of prestigious international educational associations, consultant, advisor and CEO. He was the Headmaster of The Doon School, Dehradun, for eight years until 2016. Together with the Chairman of the Board, Dr McLaughlin created and implemented a transformative 10-year Strategic Development Plan for The Doon School – which Fortune magazine credited him with ‘reinventing’. After serving as Senior Advisor to Cognita, one of the world’s largest international schools groups, Dr McLaughlin was enormously proud to have been appointed CEO of CHIREC and to have been at the helm of the school during its accelerated digital transformation in the face of COVID-19.

He is dedicated to building on the great strengths CHIREC has developed over the past three decades, including its strong family ethos, and to enhancing its reputation as a trend-setting and innovative educational institution committed to academic excellence and educating the whole child in and out of the classroom. His strong belief is that the social and emotional aspects of learning and physical and mental wellbeing are the foundations of academic success and rewarding achievement in co-curricular pursuits, and that high motivation and academic aspiration do not have to be accompanied with stress and anxiety.

Dr McLaughlin has been a post-doctoral research Fellow in Economic History at the London School of Economics; run IB and A Level schools in the UK and abroad; been Principal of the British International School, Cairo; and a senior manager and Headmaster of leading UK day and boarding private schools from the 1990s. He is a published author, with a doctoral and research specialism in military history and defence policy, and has lectured in modern European and world history, economic history and defence studies at university level.