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In just a few short years, Jay Shetty has risen rapidly to become one of the internet’s most in-demand personalities.

Named in the 2017 Forbes European 30 Under 30, Jay (OE 1999-2006) is an award-winning vlogger, filmmaker…and a former monk whose avowed aim is “share wisdom at the pace we want entertainment and make wisdom go viral”.

Jay has, to say the least, had an interesting journey since leaving QE and going on to Cass Business School in London, from which he graduated with a first-class degree in Management Science.

He retains great fondness for his School. “I have great memories of my time at QE: I think QE has some interesting memories of me! I want to personally give a huge thanks to two teachers who had a big impact on my growth.

“The first is Mr Buckeridge [Art teacher Stephen Buckeridge]. A phenomenal teacher and life mentor – without even knowing it. He was always making me think more deeply about my art work and what it meant and stood for, and he really helped me express myself and articulate creatively. His ability to challenge me and get the best out of me has really helped me mentally since that time.

“The second is Mr Ryan [David Ryan, now Assistant Head]. He tolerated all my immature tendencies, helped me grow without judging me, and supported me through some of the most formative years of my life. He was always a champion, supporter and advisor.

“I also loved playing rugby for our School A team and, of course, the public-speaking classes changed my life,” he added.

Inspired to make a difference in the world, at 22 Jay went to live as a monk in India. Then for three years, he travelled the world, during which time he helped build a sustainable village and create food programmes.

Wanting to ‘pay forward’ what he had learnt, Jay began sharing his experiences as a monk in universities and the world’s largest corporations, including EY and Nasdaq.

At the same time, he noticed that the world was rapidly going digital, so he went on to become professional services company Accenture's social media coach for executives, working in online branding and digital strategy.

His talent was spotted by Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, who made him the host of HuffPost Lifestyle in New York.

He has been invited to give keynote speeches at leading companies, including Google, Facebook and HSBC, about finding purpose, harnessing collaboration and driving change. Jay won the ITV Asian Media Award for Best Blog 2016 and came third in the Guardian Rising Star Award in 2015.

The most recent accolade comes from influential magazine Forbes: its 30 under 30 awards celebrate those seen as the brightest, most innovative game-changers in their industry. Jay certainly fits the bill in the media category: since launching his Facebook channel in 2016, his wisdom videos have garnered over 150 million views and gained more than half a million followers globally.

On his daily show on HuffPost Live, #FollowTheReader, he has interviewed the likes of entrepreneurs Russell Simmons and Tim Ferris, and Deepak Chopra, author and prominent figure in the New Age movement. The show has a daily audience of 1 million.

Jay advises several well-known brands on spotting and nurturing new talent, with the emphasis on helping people find a purpose and use for their passions in the workplace.

Krishan Dave is forging a successful career in finance – and gave a new generation of QE pupils tips on following his lead.

Krishan (2002-2009) went to King’s College London to read Mathematics on leaving School in 2009. After working for StatPro, a provider of asset valuation services and portfolio analysis software, and Dutch multinational Rabobank, he joined Northern Trust Corporation, an international, US-based financial services company, in 2014.

Based at its Canary Wharf offices in London, he was recently promoted from his role as an analyst, becoming an investment performance team leader. Krishan plans to remain with the firm for some time to come and is ambitious to rise further there. “Northern Trust is an excellent place to learn.”

He looks back on his School days with some fondness. “QE gave me a lot and provided a great foundation for my career. The two stand-out things I was involved with were the India Appeal [a charity which raises money for a school in India] and cricket: I was part of the School cricket teams from Year 7 all the way until I left, sacrificing all those Saturdays!”

Krishan still meets up with friends from QE. His spare time is also spent in going to the gym and he is a keen Arsenal fan. Food is a particular interest, and he enjoys visiting food markets as well as eating in restaurants.

In 2016, he returned to the School to give a talk at QE’s autumn Careers Convention, which is for Year 11 pupils and their parents. His session looked at finance, with a focus on investment banking. “The room was very full, so clearly a lot of boys at QE are keen to go into a career in finance,” he said. As well as discussing the different areas of a typical investment bank – front office, middle office and back office – he talked about how the culture varies both between firms and according to the type of job.

Looking at entry routes into finance, he highlighted the importance of work experience, summer internships and ‘spring weeks’ (short programmes run for first-year university students by all the leading investment banks in London during March and April). Krishan’s own CV reflects this: he spent two months with ADM Capital as a summer intern during 2011. There were now ways to get into finance straight from school, he pointed out, and he touched on the “dark world of networking”.

“The parents had some interesting questions, especially regarding the impact of Brexit on the finance industry. I replied that it won’t be as bad as most people are saying – London is a huge financial centre – but there may be some gentle impact.

“I started the same year as Mr Enright did, do it’s great to see him as Headmaster and to see that he has maintained the extremely high standards of the School whilst also overseeing phenomenal redevelopment there,” Krishan concluded.

Kamran Tajbakhsh has a new career and a new mission in life – helping young people to make their mark.

On graduating, he initially took up a post as a management consultant with a global company, but then, little more than a year after leaving Cambridge, Kamran (2004–2011) decided in June 2016 to become a performance coach and motivational speaker. It was, he says, a question of pursuing his passion. He is known professionally as Kam Taj.

As a coach, he works primarily with ambitious students and young professionals on performance improvement and goal attainment, with a strong focus on excellence in academic and professional aspects of life. He also speaks and runs training programmes at schools, universities and companies, where he aims to help people take control of their lives, overcome any limiting beliefs and “stride confidently towards attaining their goals”.

His ambition is to take the “empowering resources” of inspiring, globally recognised speakers, such as Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and Eric Thomas, and apply them to younger generations in a way that resonates with them.

“The growing influence of the internet and social media has shifted the mentality of younger generations significantly,” he says. “Whilst empowering, it can also be a cause of anxiety, low confidence and dissatisfaction if not approached with emotional maturity. My mission is to equip the younger generation with the tools they need to successfully navigate this challenge in order to grow as individuals and strive to create the future that they desire, honouring their potential to make a positive impact on their society.”

After gaining 13 A*s at GCSE and three A*s and an A in his A-levels (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Further Mathematics), he won a place at Churchill College, Cambridge. He graduated with a first in Manufacturing Engineering and a Master’s degree with Merit in the same discipline. He then briefly worked as a management consultant, specialising in strategy and due diligence, with Roland Berger, a global consulting firm.

He gave a well-received talk at the 2016 QE Careers Convention for Year 11 boys and their parents. Entitled Making Choices, the talk focused on how careers do not have to be limited by the subjects studied in School or at university. “My key message to those indecisive about their future career was to keep as many doors open for themselves as possible by excelling in the academic system, so that when they have a vision for their career in the future, they're not limited by their academic foundations.”

Kam has happy memories of his time at QE, where he was an avid basketball and tennis player, captaining the School teams in both sports as a senior pupil. He went on to captain Cambridge University’s Lawn Tennis Club’s second team, as well as his college’s tennis club and basketball team. He is grateful to many teachers, including Assistant Head of Maths Wendy Fung for “tolerating my (persistently) impudent behaviour during those challenging years of Further Maths!”

Further information about Kam’s work is available at www.kamtaj.com

This has been a good term, punctuated in the middle by the significant event of our English department moving into the refurbished and extended Heard Building.

This building is especially important in the recent history of our School since, in the late 1990s, its construction was one of the very first capital projects to be funded through the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s. It is named in honour of Luxton Robert ‘George’ Heard (OE 1927–1936). George, who died in 2009, was School Captain in his final year as a pupil. He later became QE’s Chairman of Governors, preceding the current Chairman, Barrie Martin, who took over in 1999.

Now, in the latest stage of our Estates Strategy, the Heard Building has been not merely repurposed but thoroughly modernised, structurally strengthened and upgraded, with a new link added to the adjacent Fern Building. The block provides self-contained accommodation for English, including eight classrooms and offices. It has been decorated with enlarged photographs of recent School drama productions. The project was completed on time and on budget. And once again, the work, with costs totalling more than £1m, has been entirely funded through FQE.

I am delighted at the success of this project and I would like to commence this letter by placing on record my gratitude to all the old boys and supporters of the School who have contributed. OE donations help us to deliver our Estates Strategy and are especially important in this era of challenging financial circumstances for schools in the state sector. Without such generosity, whether in the form of one-off gifts or in regular donations, our pupils and staff simply would not be enjoying the benefits afforded by these impressive new facilities. I invite any of our alumni who feel able to make a contribution, in any form, to the School, to contact me or my new Executive Assistant, Matthew Rose, a former School Captain here (OE 2002–2009). I would also welcome connection with any Old Elizabethans through my LinkedIn account.

Last summer’s very strong examination results have continued to reverberate at the School this term. January brought the publication of the annual Government league tables, which confirmed QE’s position in the foremost rank of all schools across both the independent and state sectors. QE was named the top boys’ school nationally for GCSE results, while at A-level, ranked in the tables by average point score per entry, we were the second-ranked state school in the country.

More recently, I was pleased to receive a letter from the Minister of State for School Standards, Nick Gibb, congratulating us on our “high standards…hard work and professionalism”. The letter concentrated on the School’s performance at GCSE against the Government’s new ‘Progress 8’ measure. Progress 8 measures the progress pupils make over eight key subjects, including English and Mathematics, between Key Stage 2 and the end of Key Stage 4. Queen Elizabeth’s School, Mr Gibb wrote, is among the top five per cent of schools nationally.

Following the recent Government announcement on the funding of new, selective free schools, I re-iterate my contention that it is essential that state-maintained education caters for the most able students and, furthermore, that the system enables social mobility. These are priorities that are absolutely core to our values at Queen Elizabeth’s School.

Our new School Development Plan, introduced this academic year, attaches considerable importance to providing challenge for all our very able pupils, so that they continue to make academic progress throughout their time at the School. The plan highlights the need for teachers to direct and inspire pupils to develop habits that will be useful to them in their learning. One of the habits I am especially keen for our boys to cultivate is that of asking questions. I have urged pupils not to be embarrassed but always to adopt an interrogative approach if they do not understand something: this is a sign of strength, not weakness. By persevering in asking good questions, boys will find they can readily eliminate any academic difficulties they face in the classroom.

But while that is valuable, the benefits of asking questions extend well beyond such a utilitarian outcome. Through our burgeoning lecture programme, we have recently welcomed several inspirational speakers to the School. One of the purposes of that programme is to give boys opportunities to ask questions of those who have great expertise and experience in fields that extend far outside our normal curriculum. We thus seek to nurture a culture of intellectual curiosity.

I was interested to read recently about what Google looks for in its new employees. Among the qualities it seeks is ‘high cognitive ability’ – those who are not only bright, but intellectually curious and able to learn. Google values role-related knowledge, but not deep specialisation in a narrow area: even when employing staff in a technical role, although the company assesses expertise in computer science thoroughly, it nonetheless prefers those with an extensive general understanding of computer science rather than a narrowly specialised knowledge of one field. The company has also coined a neologism – ‘Googleyness’ – to sum up a package of related qualities that it looks for when recruiting. These include enjoying fun, intellectual humility, conscientiousness, being comfortable with ambiguity (Google acknowledges that it does not know how the business will evolve) and evidence that applicants have taken some courageous or interesting paths in their lives.

The School’s own equivalent of Googleyness – ‘QE Qualities’, perhaps – would certainly include intellectual curiosity, alongside grit and resilience. Since QE is a selective school, our pupils are naturally endowed with intelligence. It gives them a valuable head start in life, but no more than that. In fact, a strong academic record on its own is recognised by employers as a poor predictor of performance. Employees who thrive eschew complacency and instead actively seek fresh challenges, embracing any failures as opportunities for growth.

As we adapt to a fast-changing world, it has been interesting to have had contact in recent months with three Old Elizabethans – Kam Taj, Jay Shetty and Aaron Tan – who are all, in their various ways, following unconventional career paths. Jay and Aaron feature in this newsletter, while Kam appeared in the Christmas edition. They and other OEs featured here are exemplars of those demonstrating a willingness to ask questions and then act courageously on the answers they receive.

I extend my best wishes to all our old boys for the Easter holiday.

Neil Enright

Old Elizabethan Nicholas Millet was pursuing a steady career as a successful management consultant – but all that changed when he went on a visit to the Jungle refugee camp at Calais.

He only planned to help for the weekend, but was so struck by the plight of the refugees that the very next day Nicholas (OE 2001–2008) flew to Chios. This Greek island was the arrival point for the highest number of refugees after Lesbos, with up to 1,500 making the journey across the Aegean Sea every night.

He told the Jewish Chronicle: “I was seeing people make these dangerous and perilous journeys on the news, and I just felt I had to be on the right side of history. I couldn’t help looking at the refugees in Calais and thinking this was my family 70 years ago when we were fleeing the Nazis.”

Having negotiated a leave of absence from his employer, he went on to lead a group of some 60 volunteers on Chios helping to ensure the safety of the desperate people crossing the sea in dinghies and rubber boats. With babies, women, children, the disabled and the sick all crammed together on their journey, it was, said Nicholas “impossible to see them coming off the boats soaking wet and not feel compelled to help them. With my managerial experience, I knew I had a strong skill set that could help.”

The European Union-Turkey deal in March 2016 brought a halt to such border crossings into the EU, but many of the refugees remained stranded on the island, where the Greek government refused to integrate the refugee children into the state school system.

Deeply shocked by this infringement of their rights and by the wider failure of Europe to resettle refugees, Nicholas gave up his job with multinational consulting company, Capgemini, and in the same month, May 2016, he and other volunteers working with a Switzerland-based organisation called Be Aware and Share (BAAS) set up Refugee Education Chios. This non-profit organisation has since established two schools – a primary and a secondary – and a youth centre, run by a team of 30 volunteers. The schools have helped educate more than 800 children and young people aged 6-22.

Nicholas, of Stanmore, has a history of involvement in humanitarian projects. Shortly after leaving QE, he spent time at the Sri Sathya Sai School – a village school in Kerala, India, which QE has supported since 2002. And, while he was a student at Cambridge, he did some work as a researcher for the Grameen Bank, the Nobel Prize-winning microfinance organisation based in Bangladesh which works to help the poor.

At Cambridge, Nicholas read for the Politics, Psychology and Sociology Tripos. He co-founded and became president of the Cambridge Global Zero Chapter – Global Zero is an international campaign working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. He was also a guest liaison officer for the Cambridge Union and was elected social steward of Fitzwilliam College Junior Members’ Association (the student body).

After graduating, he took a number of short-term roles, before in September 2013 he became an Associate Consultant for Capgemini, one of the world’s leading providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, with more than 180,000 employees in over 40 countries. In September 2015, Nicholas was promoted to become a Consultant; he worked with clients including Government departments and a British multinational retailer.

Nicholas recently visited QE to talk to boys about his humanitarian work. The talk was organised by Year 13 pupil Ché Applewhaite under the auspices of the School’s Forward Thinking Society.

Often, he explained, as a result of the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, children entering the schools on Chios have received little formal education. The schools therefore use a unique, innovative curriculum that pays special attention to refugee children’s needs. There are English, mathematics and arts lessons, together with vocational courses, including business and public speaking.

At the schools and youth centre, the children can talk openly about their experiences. Prejudices about different nationalities and races are actively challenged, as the schools aim to provide a supportive environment where all children can retain dignity and hope. The schools are also now the largest provider of child protection services on the island. The youth centre offers a kitchen so that the young people can cook their native cuisine: before it was established, there were no cooking facilities in the refugee camps.

While established NGOs would have taken six or seven months to set up a similar project, the schools and youth centre were set up very quickly indeed – for this, Nicholas credits the crucial problem-solving and leadership skills that he gained from his experience in management consultancy. However, he also emphasised that a committed attitude was the greatest asset among the volunteers on the island.

The Chios schools have attracted coverage from major news websites and Nicholas has spoken at universities, to the European Commission and with senior EU officials on panels dealing with refugee policy.

He currently plans to stay in Chios for an indefinite period to run the schools.

Thanking him for his visit, Head of Geography Emily Parry said the boys were very grateful for the thorough understanding of the refugee crisis Nicholas had provided.