About

About Us

We’ve been doing this since 2019.

chk Education began as CODA Search, founded by Coleen Hoare on a simple conviction: that the best international schools deserve leaders who don’t just fill a role, but shape a community. What started as a one-woman operation grew into a specialist firm trusted by schools across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and beyond.

In 2024, the business became chk Education, expanding to meet the growing complexity of international school leadership recruitment.

Why international education?

For Coleen, this has never just been a market. It’s a belief.

International education shapes how young people understand the world, how they relate to difference, and how broadly they define home. That only happens when the adults leading those schools carry the same openness. A headteacher who has lived and worked across cultures doesn’t just teach global citizenship, they model it.

Coleen has built her career placing educators who are genuinely worldly: not tied to one system, one culture, or one way of doing things, but curious, adaptable, and shaped by the places they’ve chosen to work. That belief sits at the heart of everything chk does.

What we bring

Deep market knowledge across British and Irish educators, and those with experience teaching in the UK or Ireland. A direct, honest approach to search. And a genuine commitment to getting the right person into the right school, because in international education, leadership matters more than almost anywhere else.