Markus grew up in a network of language schools that his father ran throughout the Middle East, where they taught English, French, and German to Arab students, and Arabic to learners from other nationalities.
Your curiosity led you to study Journalism and Advertising at the Sorbonne in Paris. What inspired that choice?
Growing up between the Persian Gulf, Lebanon and the UK, I changed countries, schools, and languages constantly. The world around me was fascinating, and communication was the one constant. I was drawn to people, places and current affairs, and a school visit to a newspaper office in Beirut when I was ten left a deep impression on me and planted the idea of working in media. Studying Communications at the Sorbonne felt like the natural next step toward that early dream.
Did your professional journey begin in France?
It began much earlier. As a child I did odd jobs in my family’s language schools in the Middle East, and as a teenager in London I helped run our agency operations alongside my studies. During my final school years in Paris, I coordinated study abroad experiences for French students wanting to learn another language, which gave me practical insight into how agencies operated and what schools needed. Later, I interned with Agence France Presse in Bahrain, with the French Prime Minister’s press service, and then with the International Herald Tribune in Paris before joining a German news agency for a couple of years.
In 1991, you founded ICEF with your father, Karl, who already had solid entrepreneurial experience, having set up a chain of language schools around the Middle East and in London before operating as an agency and then as a publisher in Germany. Did you both feel there was a need to create a meeting point between agencies and educational institutions?
We originally founded ICEF to run the Expolingua fairs around Europe and Asia. My father and sister later launched the first ICEF Agent Workshop in Berlin in 1995, after I had moved on to the tech sector. My father had spent decades working both as a school owner and an education agent, and he understood the challenges on both sides. He recognised that schools and agencies needed a more structured way to meet, build trust, and form reliable partnerships. It was a natural evolution, and it was not created in isolation; associations like ARELS (now English UK) and IALC had already begun organising similar workshops earlier.
You later paused your involvement with ICEF to work in the technology sector, during the early years of the internet.
Yes. In the early nineties I joined Cisco Systems in California and worked as a marketing manager across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. I was with Cisco from the early era of the internet through to the peak of the dot-com boom, and it shaped my thinking profoundly. I saw how technology could scale organisations, transform workflows, and instil much-needed discipline. That experience influenced how I later modernised ICEF and how I approach strategy, operations, and quality today.
In 2004 you returned to ICEF to take on the leadership role you continue to hold today. Many of us recall those early Berlin workshops that seemed enormous at the time, and now that same hall is just one among many at today’s ICEF Berlin, and the event itself only a part of the total footprint, with ICEF having expanded to every continent.
When I returned to ICEF, I saw a clear opportunity to bring more structure, transparency, and scale to our events. The industry was evolving and needed more professional and efficient platforms. We expanded globally, launched ICEF Monitor, strengthened quality assurance, invested in data, and developed a comprehensive agent training programme. Growth followed naturally once we raised standards and focused on measurable outcomes for both institutions and agencies. Watching ICEF Berlin grow from a single-hall event to a multi-hall global gathering has been incredibly rewarding. It reflects not only the growth of ICEF but also the evolution of the entire industry.
Having built a global presence through networking events, market intelligence, and training, the ICEF accreditation has become one of your main areas of focus. In your view, how does this accreditation benefit the Spanish market?
Spain is an important outbound agency market with an extremely rigorous national quality seal through ASEPROCE, one of the strictest in the world, alongside BELTA in Brazil. ICEF Accreditation adds an international dimension to that. It signals professionalism, reliability, and operational integrity to institutions worldwide. The two systems complement each other: ASEPROCE provides independent national validation, while ICEF adds international benchmarking. Together they give Spanish agencies a multi-layered quality framework recognised globally, which is a powerful advantage.
Walking through the halls of Berlin today, we can’t help but notice the absence of agents from some countries currently in conflict. Thirty years ago, few could have imagined such a world, in a city where fragments of the Wall have turned into tourist souvenirs. How do you view this?
Berlin is a symbolic place for this industry. It represents openness, exchange, and connection. International education reflects the world we live in, and sometimes the world forces difficult decisions. After the invasion of Ukraine, we made a clear choice: we would only work with Russian organisations that operate legally and independently outside Russia. That protects the integrity of our events and aligns with our values. Not everyone agrees, but leadership is about making decisions that stand up over time. Even with these absences, the core mission of international education remains. Relationships between people outlast political cycles, and that is exactly why this work matters.
The world is changing rapidly, and you witnessed firsthand the digital revolution of the internet. How do you view this new transformation currently unfolding with artificial intelligence?
I see AI as the next major shift. The internet gave us information; AI gives us decisions. It will reshape student guidance, recruitment, and the entire customer journey. But the human element will stay essential. Families still want trust, experience, and judgement. Technology will make processes faster and more efficient, but it won’t replace the human relationships that lie at the heart of international education. Those who adopt AI early while maintaining human judgement and transparency will gain the most.
International education is shifting more toward experiential learning and personal development. Do you agree?
Very much so. Academic outcomes matter more than ever, but families now also look for something deeper: personal growth, resilience, confidence, cultural awareness, and international exposure. International education has always been transformative. The industry is now embracing that reality more explicitly.
Where did you learn to speak Spanish, and what other languages do you speak?
I first learned Spanish through friends I met at school in London, and frequent trips to Spain deepened it. I’ve always had strong ties to the country and its culture, and I even lived in Barcelona for four years just before the pandemic. Multilingualism was part of my childhood, so learning new languages came naturally. I speak English, French, and German fluently, followed by Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Dutch.
Thank you, mercí, danke, gracias, grazie, شكرًا لك, obrigado, Bedankt
Interview conducted by Pablo Martínez de Velasco Astray, President of ASEPROCE.
