School Council

Linda Csellak, Council Chair

Linda recently capped a career as an equity mutual fund manager in both Asia and the US. She has lived in Hong Kong for twenty-five years and worked for Manulife, Credit Agricole, as well as several smaller firms. In these roles, she has most enjoyed empowering investment teams to perform at their maximum potential.

Linda has served on the boards of several Hong Kong NGOs in the governance and finance sectors and has seen these organizations flourish from their struggling early days. Having now transitioned to an advisory capacity, she enjoys mentoring and coaching, from high school students to start-up companies. She is passionate about education, mental health, and environmental sustainability.

Nigel R Merritt, Community Representative

Nigel arrived in Hong Kong (from London) with his young family in 1994 to pursue a career in Business Consultancy, albeit he had been a frequent visitor to Hong Kong since the early 80’s.

Nigel specialises in SME company reorganisation and restructuring, offering advice to a wide range of businesses, either as a Consultant, or as a member of the Board. He also oversees and participates – as CEO – in the running of a family Property Portfolio in London.

Married with 3 children – 2 living in Hong Kong and 1 in London – Nigel has been seconded to various overseas businesses in his career and developed extensive experience and contacts at all levels of business in various countries in the world, ranging from Europe to the Middle East, Scandinavia to North and South America.

He sits on the Football Development Board of the Indochinastarfish Foundation (Charity) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and was co-writer of the Foundation’s 5 Year Strategic Development Plan.

Closer to home, Nigel is a member of and committee participant at the Hong Kong Football Club where he developed and runs the Club’s community soccer initiative – the HKFC Crusaders – that offers a weekly soccer session to various disadvantaged children and adults – Club and non Club members – who have a passion/interest for football, many of which have either graduated from JCSRS or are still students here.

Nigel is honoured to be asked to join the School Council and looks forward to “adding value” during his tenure.

Karen Carmody, Teacher Representative

Karen moved to Hong Kong in 2006 to work as a speech and language therapist for a private practice serving international schools and clients in a clinical setting. She moved to JCSRS as a speech and language therapist in 2008 and began teacher training a few years later.

In 2014 she took a position at Bradbury School as a learning support teacher before returning to JCSRS to take up a leadership role. She is currently the lead teacher for curriculum and is passionate about teaching and learning, supporting student communication and staff development.