Leadership. Insight. Influence.

Jacqueline Shaw is a pioneering force in Gulf-region (GCC) education, best known as the founder and co-owner of both the American International University (AIU) and the American Baccalaureate School (ABS) in Kuwait. With over two decades of leadership across K–12 and higher education, Ms. Shaw is recognized for building institutions from the ground up, setting new standards for academic excellence, ethical governance, and data-driven innovation.

In 2017, she established AIU and served as its founder and founding CEO through December 2023, overseeing all phases of development from licensing and accreditation to executive hiring, policy design, construction, branding, and enrollment growth. Under her leadership, AIU evolved from a startup university of 26 students into one of the region’s fastest-growing institutions, now serving over 3,000 students on a purpose-built $200M campus.

In January 2024, Ms. Shaw transitioned from founding CEO to Executive Chair of the Board, continuing her executive leadership of the institution through October 2025. In this role, she established and sustained the governance, technology, and strategic infrastructure that define AIU today, directing long-term strategic planning, research development, and board governance while spearheading the university’s digital transformation through the deployment of world-class enterprise technologies including Oracle Financials, Salesforce, Tableau, HRSIS, and other integrated systems that redefined institutional efficiency, accountability, and academic excellence across all divisions. She operated the institution as its principal executive leader from inception through October 2025.

Prior to founding AIU, Ms. Shaw launched the American Baccalaureate School (ABS) in 2006, now one of Kuwait’s most respected U.S.-accredited K–12 institutions. ABS currently enrolls 1,250 students and employs over 250 staff, and is ranked among the region’s most competitive academic environments. Ms. Shaw led the institution as its principal executive from founding through October 2025.

Ms. Shaw remains the founder and a co-owner of both institutions, invested in the long-term legacies of the schools she founded and built.

Her institutional legacy also includes the Oxford Learning Center, the K–12 tutoring and enrichment center she founded earlier in her career in Kuwait, which served as the proving ground for the educational philosophy and operational standards she would later bring to ABS and AIU.

Ms. Shaw’s leadership is characterized by her commitment to transparency, operational precision, and faith-informed excellence. Her work has influenced education systems across the GCC, inspiring reform in governance, technology adoption, and performance management. She is also known for mentoring emerging leaders and embedding values-based innovation at every level of the organizations she has led.

She holds an MBA from Arizona State University, a Master of International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management, and a BA in Business Administration from the University of Washington. Ms. Shaw is currently based in Los Angeles, where she is completing doctoral research at Pepperdine University on faith-led leadership in secular institutions while continuing to advise on matters of institutional governance, educational technology, and leadership development across the United States, the GCC region, and internationally.

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