The Pharo Verse
One charitable parent, three operating arms, and a portfolio of schools, programmes and ventures across four countries. This is how the Foundation is built.
Homosha Girls’ Boarding School campus, Ethiopia.
A holding company for impact.
Pharo Foundation operates like a lean holding company: a small global team allocates capital and sets standards, country offices stay closest to the ground and spot local challenges and opportunities, and operating units deliver impact and returns.
Our three missions, Education, Water and Productivity, are delivered through three operating arms. Pharo Schools runs the school network. Pharo Development delivers subsidised, not-for-profit programmes. Pharo Ventures builds and scales profitable businesses that reinvest in the mission.
This structure lets us operate across radically different environments, from school operations to dam engineering to manufacturing, without losing control or coherence.
The three operating arms
Every school, programme and venture sits within one of these three arms.
Pharo Schools
Eight schools across four countries, run as one network under a Managing Director, with a shared pedagogical model.
Pharo Development
Not-for-profit programmes that target structural barriers: water, health, early education and agricultural systems.
Pharo Ventures
Commercial enterprises that create jobs and reinvest: edible oil, Ken Tuna, concrete and more.
The full group structure
Operating units by arm and country, as of 2025/26.
Pharo Schools
Pharo Development
Pharo Ventures
How do you stay coherent across a diverse portfolio?
Pharo runs schools, water infrastructure, health diagnostics, an oil plant, a concrete business and more. Allocating real authority and leadership responsibility to the people closest to delivery is what makes this work, but it risks fragmentation.
Push authority too far down, and the parts drift apart; pull it back to the centre and the people closest to delivery lose the room to act well. Holding both at once is the central organisational challenge.
Understand the model, then build with us.
For partners and investors exploring how operator-led philanthropy works in practice.