Sam Truman

Sam Truman is Chief Operating Officer at Taaleem who are one of the largest providers of private education in the UAE. He is a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) which ensures he promotes and enforces the highest professional standards in the development and management of land, real estate, construction, and infrastructure. Sam is also an Alumni of Henley Business School having completed their Executive Leadership and Management Programme. In addition, he holds a Master’s degree at the level of distinction in Commercial Management and Quantity Surveying from Heriot-Watt University.

Sam is an experienced education industry executive with over 17 years’ experience working in the international private school development sector. As COO of Taaleem, Sam is currently responsible for delivering operational excellence and efficiency across Taaleem’s portfolio of schools. He is also responsible for driving growth and value creation initiatives for the group. In addition to this role, he oversees all marketing and admissions activities for the group, ensuring that they are aligned in their strategies and goals.

He is a member of Taaleem’s Senior Executive Board (SEB) that promotes operational excellence and develops future growth strategies. The SEB also determines and develops effective and efficient operational policies, provides leadership support and ensures the accountability of all schools within the group.

He is passionate about design and delivering outstanding, future-proof, energy-efficient and eco-friendly learning environments. As a Chartered Quantity Surveyor (CQS), his responsibilities include preparing feasibility studies and controlling project costs. He has an enviable record of designing and delivering multi-million dollar, multifaceted, fast track projects both on time and within budget. To date, he has delivered approximately 1.5 billion (AED) of educational assets for the group.

Prior to joining Taaleem, Sam spent 10 years with one of the world’s largest educational suppliers. Here he successfully developed their reach, supply and distribution chains across the GCC, the Far East and Central Asia. He was recognised for many significant successes; one of which was the successful execution of multiple contracts awarded by the US Aid Department for the supply of essential educational supplies to locations across Iraq to aid the reconstruction of government schools. In addition, he secured a number of major contract awards from the Asian Development Bank for educational projects.