Sheerwan O’Shea-Nejad

Sheerwan O’Shea-Nejad works with leaders on a simple problem that shows up everywhere: people are usually responding rationally to the system they’re in, even when leadership doesn’t like the results. Over time, organisations teach people what really matters. Talent learns the real rules quickly, and then either adapts or leaves.

In education, this often becomes visible when schools grow or expand internationally, through partnerships, overseas campuses, or franchising, where governance is complex and incentives can quietly pull stakeholders in different directions. Sheerwan helps leaders make the “real rules” explicit and align them with the outcomes they actually care about.

Sheerwan has spent his career in education, working internationally across the UK, China, and Singapore, including within some of the most respected schools in the world. Through teaching and leadership roles, he developed a practical understanding of how outcomes are shaped less by stated values and more by everyday signals: what is rewarded, what is tolerated, who is listened to, and which trade-offs are quietly avoided.

Educated at Highgate School, UCL, and the University of Oxford, Sheerwan’s background in economics and development sharpened his focus on incentives and behaviour. He has applied this lens to help organisations examine how their structures drive decision-making, both the intended effects and the unintended consequences, and how to redesign systems so that the outcomes they want are the outcomes they reliably get. This perspective also shaped his work founding OxPrep, an AI-powered Oxbridge preparation platform.

Much of Sheerwan’s work is about avoiding classic incentive traps, short-term targets that distort behaviour, and principal–agent dynamics where the people making decisions don’t bear the long-term consequences. Rather than treating “culture” as a standalone issue, he looks at the mechanics underneath it: incentives, decision rights, workload expectations, status signals, and accountability. When these elements are misaligned, organisations drift; when they reinforce one another, execution and trust become markedly easier.

At 3PCore, Sheerwan advises UK schools and other organisations on incentive design, governance, and long-term performance, especially in complex partnerships and international expansion. His work typically involves clarifying decision rights, aligning measures and rewards, and designing governance that prevents short-termism while still driving results.

Sheerwan’s view is straightforward: integrity should not depend on individual goodwill or constant oversight. If organisations want consistent, fair outcomes, integrity has to be designed into how decisions are made, how people are evaluated, and how success is defined.