Associate Director of Student Recruitment

Anderson Quigley is delighted to be partnering with Bridge School of Business on the appointment of an Associate Director of Student Recruitment.

Terms:

This is a permanent appointment based in London, with a highly flexible approach to working. Instead, we are seeking someone who will spend their time wherever it creates the most impact; whether that is meeting schools and colleges, developing partnerships, engaging prospective students, collaborating with colleagues or working remotely.

A competitive salary is available dependent on experience, together with performance-related bonuses and a generous long term incentive scheme.

Who is Bridge School of Business?

Bridge School of Business (https://bsblondon.co.uk/) has been created to challenge conventional approaches to business education and deliver a more relevant, accessible and career focused experience for today’s learners. Our ambition is straightforward: to build a modern business school that combines academic quality, outstanding student outcomes and genuine social impact with the agility, responsiveness and commercial focus often missing from traditional models.

Our Co-founder, Craig Chettle MBE, knows what it takes to build something exceptional. Craig founded the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies in Nottingham, growing it from a small specialist provider into one of the UK’s most successful and distinctive education businesses before its acquisition by Nottingham Trent University. Over 20+ years, Confetti evolved into a nationally recognised institution supporting thousands of students and became part of a wider ecosystem of successful commercial and educational ventures. Craig was awarded an MBE for Services to Entrepreneurship and the Creative Industries.

Supported by committed investors and led by an experienced leadership team, we are now applying this same entrepreneurial mindset, long term ambition and belief in the transformative power of education to Bridge School of Business.

Overview of the role:

This is one of the most influential appointments Bridge School of Business will make in its formative years.

Unlike many recruitment leadership roles, there is no large team waiting for you to inherit. In year one, you will be both architect and operator. Reporting directly to the COO and working closely with the CEO, founders, investors and board stakeholders, you will build recruitment infrastructure, establish market presence, develop partnerships, create pipelines, oversee conversion activity and help shape the student experience from first enquiry through to enrolment.

To start with, the role will be heavily weighted towards domestic student recruitment, with a particular focus on London and its surrounding boroughs. We are seeking someone who genuinely understands London; its communities, schools, colleges, employers, demographics and opportunities. Success in this role will require local knowledge, commercial instinct and a deep understanding of how students make decisions about higher education.

You will develop and execute recruitment strategies across multiple channels, oversee UCAS activity, identify new market opportunities, build relationships with schools and colleges, shape conversion campaigns and create a scalable recruitment function capable of supporting significant future growth. As student numbers grow, you will recruit and develop a dedicated student recruitment team, with plans to build a function of up to 4 colleagues from Year 2.

In a nutshell, we are seeking someone who can think creatively, challenge assumptions, test new approaches and help build a student recruitment model designed specifically for Bridge School of Business. This is a role for someone who genuinely enjoys the process of building, creating and delivering.

Essential criteria:

• You may currently be an Associate Director of Student Recruitment, Head of Student Recruitment, or within another similar role within higher education.
• Whatever your title, you will bring a proven track record of delivering student recruitment growth and developing successful recruitment strategies within higher education, ideally within independent, alternative or challenger institutions.
• You will possess a strong understanding of domestic student recruitment, including UCAS, conversion activity, partnership development and recruitment funnel management.
• You will have significant experience operating within the London market and understand the unique opportunities and challenges associated with recruiting students across the capital and surrounding regions.
• You will be equally comfortable developing strategy and delivering activity yourself. This is not a role for someone seeking a large existing team or extensive organisational infrastructure from the outset, although of course we have ambitious goals to grow and scale our teams.
• Experience of alternative or independent higher education providers, private education organisations or entrepreneurial educational ventures would be advantageous, although we also welcome applications from commercially minded recruitment leaders within the public university sector.
• Most importantly, you will bring energy, resilience, curiosity and ambition. You will enjoy working with high levels of autonomy, thrive in outcome, target and impact led environments and be excited by the opportunity to help create one of London’s most distinctive new higher education providers.

How to apply:

Bridge School of Business offers an entrepreneurial, high autonomy environment where ambitious individuals can build, shape and lead. This is a rare opportunity to join an investor backed higher education start up at the very beginning of its journey and play a defining role in its future success.

If this excited you and you’d like to find out more, please contact our advising consultants:

• Eva Tomka: eva.tomka@andersonquigley.com
• Akhil Yerneni: akhil.yerneni@andersonquigley.com

Anderson Quigley is acting as an advisor to Bridge School of Business. An executive search process is being carried out by Anderson Quigley in addition to any public advertisements.