Phil Cummins

Phil is an educator by trade and conviction. He is the Hooke Family Professor of Practice in Educational Leadership at the University of Sydney, which includes his role as the Founder and Director of the Sydney Character Initiative – Australia’s tertiary home for character education. He is the Founder and Managing Director of the CIRCLE Education Group including the global educational consulting agency a School for tomorrow. and its research institute CIRCLE - The Centre for Innovation, Research, Creativity and Leadership in Education. Phil is also Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and has been awarded Fellowships by the Royal Society of Arts, the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (at national and state levels) and the Institute of Management and Leadership. Internationally recognised for his work in character education, boys' education and leadership in the South Pacific, Professor Cummins has led an extensive global educational research program for the past decade, lectured and spoken widely (including at Oxford University), and is the author of over thirty five books and numerous other publications in his original discipline of history, and in future-fit educational strategy, leadership, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Most recently, in 2022 he co-authored Game Changers: Leading Today's Learning For Tomorrow's World, and in 2025, he released the Dr Phil Cummins Character Education Series and A Journey, all published by Amba Press. In 2026, he will be publishing two books for Amba on character and boys’ education that will contribute a distinctively Australian perspective of excellence and equity to the international conversation in both areas. Phil is also host of the Game Changers Podcast which now exceeds 1,000,000 episode listens in 18 series across more than 75 countries globally.