‍Henry Kozak (HK): To kick us off, can you give us the 60-second version of Education Perfect’s growth journey so far?

Rachel Jenkins (RJ): Absolutely. Education Perfect is a digital teaching and learning platform built to amplify the impact of teachers in the classroom. Our mission is to maximise every student’s potential by empowering educators to differentiate teaching at scale.

We began in 2007 in Dunedin, New Zealand, as Language Perfect, created by two brothers to support language learning. It quickly gained traction with teachers and, by 2014, evolved into Education Perfect, expanding to include core subjects like Maths, English, and Science.

In 2020, EP supported over 1 million users globally, offering free access during COVID. We’ve since acquired EdPotential and Essential Assessment, expanded into Canada, and welcomed KKR as a majority investor in 2021.

In 2024, we launched the first AI-powered feedback tool for schools in ANZ - and its been proven to improve student engagement and results. Today, the EP Group supports over 5,000 schools and 1.7 million subject enrolments worldwide — and our journey is just getting started.

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HK: As the company scaled, when did it become apparent that the brand wasn’t keeping up—or even starting to creak a little? What were the signs that showed it was no longer quite right for where you were headed?

RJ: I joined EP in mid-2023, and it quickly became clear there was a disconnect between our brand and where the business was heading. The market had shifted significantly — customer needs, the competitive landscape, and our own product had all evolved. But our brand hadn’t kept pace. It wasn’t telling the right story or reflecting our position in the market. The brand refresh became a strategic opportunity, fully backed by our CEO and leadership, to align the business and accelerate toward our north star.

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HK: At that point, how did you and the business start thinking differently about brand? Were there new questions or tensions that came into focus?

RJ: As a leadership team, there was unanimous agreement that change was needed. While a dedicated group led the brand work, it was part of a broader organisational shift to sharpen our focus on the mission. Across the business, we began asking bigger questions — about our priorities, our unique value proposition, and what we truly needed to deliver on it. It was a career highlight for me to be part of such a transformative moment, with brand thinking at the heart of company-wide change. 

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HK: During the work we did together, were there any breakthrough moments – insights or decisions that helped unlock the new direction?

RJ: In one of our early workshops with a cross-section of the business, we had some powerful debates around seemingly simple questions — like whether we’re an education company or a technology company. It sounds basic, but those discussions ran deep. Using examples like Canva — a design company powered by tech — helped us reframe the conversation. Landing on that clarity early on was a breakthrough. It aligned the team and laid the groundwork for strong, company-wide buy-in.

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HK: One of the big shifts in the new brand is about putting teachers at the centre – championing them and amplifying (enabling) them. How has that changed how the business thinks and talks?

RJ: Teachers have always been at the heart of EP — our mission has consistently been to amplify their impact and help maximise every student’s potential. But that focus wasn’t clearly reflected in our brand. As part of the refresh, we made intentional decisions to change that. We gathered extensive input from both our customer-facing teams and educators themselves to ensure their voices were truly represented. And to align closely with our product vision, our Chief Product Officer played a central role in the brand project, helping ensure that what we stand for is reflected in what we build.

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HK: Now that you're on the other side of the brand transformation, what does the new brand make possible that the old one didn’t?

RJ: The new brand has brought real alignment across the business — it’s sharpened our focus on the mission, strengthened our positioning, and created greater clarity in our go-to-market approach. For marketing specifically, it’s improved our messaging and brought consistency to how we show up visually and verbally. Importantly, the internal response has been overwhelmingly positive — it’s energised the team and helped unify us around a shared direction.

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HK: In your view, what’s easy to get wrong about brand during fast growth, especially in a complex space like education?

RJ: In fast-growing companies, especially in a complex space like education, it’s easy for the brand to fall out of step with the pace of change. As businesses evolve — adapting, iterating, and refining their unique value proposition — the brand must remain flexible and forward-looking. One of the biggest missteps is anchoring the brand too tightly to where the business is now, rather than where it’s headed. A brand needs to be a strategic asset that can scale with the company, not a constraint that becomes outdated as growth accelerates.

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HK: Looking back, what do you credit as the biggest factor in getting the brand to where it is today?

RJ: The biggest factor in the success of the brand refresh was that the business was truly ready for meaningful change. This wasn’t just a marketing initiative — it was embedded in a broader strategic shift, with the full support of the senior leadership team. Having our CPO as part of the core brand team ensured alignment with product vision, and incorporating strong customer insight kept us grounded in real-world needs. The conditions were right for the brand to be adopted deeply and authentically across the organisation. In that sense, timing was everything — the business was aligned, the need was clear, and the moment was right to make brand a catalyst for transformation.