Mr. John Rendel

CEO of PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools)


United Kingdom

John Rendel is the Founder and CEO of PEAS, a rapidly growing and multiple award winning social enterprise that widens access to secondary education in Africa. John studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford where he was picked out as a FreshMinds “One to Watch”. A trip during a university vacation to East Africa led John to found a low-fee, not-for-profit secondary school in Uganda. The success of that school led to the development of PEAS’s “SmartAid” approach.

After graduating, John joined the Teach First program and taught secondary-school mathematics in Camberwell, London for two years. In the summer of 2006, he left the classroom and began working full time on “growing PEAS”. John has gone on to win the Teach First Ambassador Award, an UnLtd Social Enterprise Award, and to become a member of the Courvoisier Future 500 and the Rockefeller Top One Hundred Next Century Innovators. In 2013, PEAS won the UK Charity Awards and the WISE Global Innovation Awards. From February 2014, PEAS will be educating 1 percent of all secondary school students in Uganda.

He is winner of the Best International Aid & Development award, overall winner at the 2013 Charity Awards and joint winner of a 2013 WISE Award.