“Things are changing… Things are changing quickly and in a big way.” – Shane Lipscombe, Founder of Shane English Schools and Saxoncourt
In September’s regional Shane English School franchise meeting in Taipei, Taiwan, founder Shane Lipscombe completed the handover of Shane English School Taiwan and finalised its new identity as Shane Education.
Though Shane Education has been acting separately from Saxoncourt Taiwan for several months, this was when the two companies’ new relationship was formalised with Taiwan’s franchisees. Mr Lipscombe offered up an impassioned speech about his love of the company he built, though ultimately he has decided to leave the school in the good hands of Shin Kong Global Venture Capital Corp (新光國際創業投資股份有限公司), becoming a shareholder and consultant of the new company rather than a day-to-day decision maker.
“There are still opportunities to grow in Taiwan… [but] the world is calling to me, so what do we do? Do we open in Azerbaijan or more in Taiwan or go to China? There are too many opportunities now. It’s good! Many people are coming to us. They want our franchise here or they want to buy books there, or they want us to train their teachers some other place… I think that over the [last] forty years we have a good reputation for all the things we do in the English language business: having our own schools and franchise schools, training teachers and recruiting teachers, sending teachers to universities or kindergartens, making books and selling books, having bookshops, and so on. So it’s taken 40 years, but I think we have a good reputation worldwide… I was delighted to hear of the opportunity of working together with our friends here today at Shin Kong. I think this is the perfect opportunity for Shane English School in Taiwan.” – Shane Lipscombe to franchisees, September 2018
The Shin Kong team is headed up by Alex Lin (林皓昱) and Dr David Li (李光斌). Mr Lin has extensive experience in a variety of fields as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, and his role as a university lecturer intersects with the education sector. Dr Li has likewise spent time teaching at Taiwan University as an assistant profession, and his expertise ranges from engineering to finance.
Though they have parted ways in some senses, Shane Education and Saxoncourt are still closely linked by shared history and complementary goals of preparing this generation of English learners for the opportunities ahead. And through it all, Mr Lipscombe will continue to act as a consultant to Shane Education whenever his experience can benefit the organisation. Saxoncourt – and Shane English School internationally – offer the newly minted Shane Education all the best.