CRAIG PAXTON
Executive Director

Craig Paxton is the co-Founder and Executive Director of Axium Education Services. A six-week stint in a remote school in KwaZulu-Natal in 2002 convinced him of the dire need for educational innovation in rural South Africa. As a former chemical engineer with Sappi Southern Africa and client manager for MBendi Information Services, Paxton's private-sector background complements his passion for teaching excellence. He has taught in Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom, bringing a wealth of science and mathematics teaching experience and a unique perspective on how best practices from the developed world can be adapted to work in the rural classroom.

Paxton received a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town in 1998 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the same institution four years later. He was a 2009 Fulbright Scholar and held a Reynolds Foundation Fellowship in Social Entrepreneurship at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, from which he graduated with a Masters degree in school leadership.

MICHELLE PAXTON
Financial Director

Michelle is the co-Founder and Financial Director of Axium Education. Her experiences traveling through southern Africa in 2003 left a deep impression of the hunger rural children have for learning. As a senior client trainer for Thomson-Reuters Financial Services for the past five years, she has won numerous honors for service excellence, including the prestigious CEO's Circle award. Michelle combines a strong financial background with a drive for serving students in the classroom. A qualified Mathematics teacher, she taught in the UK and South Africa prior to working for Thomson-Reuters.

Her education includes a Bachelor of Business Science (2001) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (2002) from the University of Cape Town.

EVAN TORRANCE
Non-executive Director

Evan was born in Cape Town and educated at South Africa College Schools (SACS). His undergraduate studies - a Bachelor of Business Science (Marketing) - were completed at the University of Cape Town (UCT) after which he took up a position in the marketing department of Cape Union Mart. In 2001 he undertook part-time studies through UCT - a part-time Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Management) degree - after which he successfully completed a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) degree with first-class honours. Evan has been involved in a number of small businesses and charities over the past 10 years - like Habitat for Humanity for example - and is currently the chairman of an education NGO called Sikhula Sonke. Evan is currently the group marketing manager of Cape Union Mart and a member of the senior management team. He is married to Kerryn and has a son named Cameron.

JACQUI FOORD
Non-executive Director

Jacqui was educated in the public school system in Pinelands, Cape Town and went on to study Physics, Chemistry and Maths A-Levels at a private school in the UK, excelling in Maths. Jacqui's creative spirit overtook her mathematical one and after studying design for 3 years at the then Cape Technikon, worked at a local design agency for 2 years. Jacqui opened her own design studio in 2002 and a few more businesses in the years following, all still operating in Cape Town. Still passionate about Maths and highly passionate about South Africa, Jacqui's contribution is an energetic and creative one.

JOHN GIBBON
Non-executive Director

Graduating from UCT with a B.A. and Secondary Teacher's Diploma, John Gibbon commenced teaching at Westerford High School in Rondebosch, Cape, where he later became vice-principal. He completed a B.Ed. at UCT, then a Masters at the University of Virginia, USA, in Secondary School Leadership, followed by a doctorate in the same discipline. He served as Principal at Sea Point Boys' High School from 1971, and then returned to serve in this capacity at Westerford until 1995. With the formation of the new South Africa, he moved into the role of an independent education consultant working in disadvantaged school communities wherever possible. His focus was on implementing the new SA curriculum, and developing school management teams to manage curriculum activities. He continues with this work at present.

He does teacher professional development work for a teacher union, independent and state schools and provincial education departments in a number of South African provinces. He has also presented seminars in the United Kingdom, the USA, the Emirates, India, China, Botswana and Namibia. All four of his children are teachers, two of whom currently serve as principals of Peninsula high schools.

MBULUNGENI MADIBA
Non-executive Director

Mbulungeni Madiba is an associate professor and co-ordinator of the Multilingualism Education Project in the Centre for Higher Education Development at the University of Cape Town. He received his D.Litt et Phil in Linguistics and an MA and BA Honours in African Languages from the University of South Africa.

His main fields of research include language policies, language planning; politics of language, terminography, multilingualism, corpus linguistics and human language technology. He is the recipient of fellowship awards from the South African National Research Foundation, German Exchange Programme (DAAD) (University of Cologne), Oppenheimer Fellow (University of London, UK) and Visiting Research Fellow (University of Birmingham, UK) and is a Mandela Fellow at Harvard University. He has co-published several grammar books, four poetry anthologies and two novels in Venda which is his mother tongue. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on language planning and policy.