Head - Executive Education (Dubai Campus)

at  Heriot Watt University

ABOUT OUR SCHOOL/DIRECTORATE AND TEAM:

The Business and Enterprise Directorate’s vision is to shape a better future through collaborative industry partnerships and start-up facilitation, fostering a culture that promotes and celebrates innovation and entrepreneurship whilst growing a globally connected ecosystem that delivers significant value to our students, staff, partners, and communities. By achieving this vision, we can unlock new opportunities for revenue generation and economic impact.
Business and Enterprise aims to drive new opportunities and outcomes aligned to the University’s Strategy 2025 by providing the highest quality business development and commercialisation support that enables Heriot-Watt to build on its research strength, industry engagement and unlock new opportunities, funding, and investment irrespective of geographical location.
The UAE has embarked on a journey of economic transformation, diversifying its economy, and reducing dependence on oil revenues. Industry engagement is critical in this process as they facilitate the exchange of expertise, technology, and investment opportunities. The ever-changing world of business requires even the most experienced leaders to adapt through new skills and ways of thinking. At Heriot-Watt University Dubai, the focus is on equipping industry and their businesses to navigate this challenging world. The University provides a portfolio of innovative courses that help organisations reach their objectives, and gain competitive advantage through targeted, online/hybrid/face to face, competency-based courses, bespoke and accredited programmes.
Building on the pan-university initiative for executive education launched in 2023, involving the Edinburgh Business School and the Enterprise Directorate, the university is establishing an executive education and lifelong learning department and seeking to appoint a Head with demonstrated experience in this area to lead the development and growth of the same.

HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY VALUES

With a history dating back to 1821, Heriot-Watt University has established a reputation for world-class teaching and professionally relevant, leading-edge research, which has made it one of the top UK universities for business and industry.
We are a vibrant, forward-looking university, well known for the quality of our degrees with employers actively seeking out our graduates. Heriot-Watt is also Scotland’s international university with an unsurpassed international in-country presence. We deliver degree programmes to circa 30,000 students in 143 countries around the world, have a further overseas campus in Dubai and boast the largest international student cohort in Scotland.
At Heriot-Watt we’ve created an environment that nurtures innovation and leadership - where our researchers, staff and students can realise their potential and develop their ambitions.
We are proud of our collegiate atmosphere and integrated teaching and research approach which has helped to build a community of committed academics and highly motivated students. Our focus on careers delivers results and we’ve an excellent reputation for graduate employability.
In addition to the Edinburgh campus, we currently have campuses in the Scottish Borders, Orkney, Dubai and Malaysia. For all of our campuses we aim to provide stimulating, supportive environments conducive to effective learning and research, where staff and students can excel. At Heriot-Watt, we have an established set of values that help us to nurture innovation and leadership, and show our commitment to continuous improvement and development in all our activities.
Our values describe our deeply held beliefs and our community spirit. They characterise not only how we are as a higher education institution but also frame how we want to be.

Our values are:

• Belong
• Collaborate
• Inspire
• Celebrate

As learning, living and working institution, we use our values as the building blocks of how we go about doing our work and how we each conduct ourselves as members of Heriot-Watt University. They represent what binds us together as a University community and help us to become the best at what we do.
For full details on our University, please view our website https://www.hw.ac.uk/about.htm

Develop and deliver a robust sales and marketing strategy for the programme that will; utilise existing relationships, grow new partnerships and generate market traction. Working with colleagues across the University, to successfully market our executive education offering in a way that will generate wider interest, attracting a wider range of clients being driven to the programme through it

• ‘s improved reputation and reach. A comprehensive and well-co-ordinated marketing strategy will be a key element of delivering the outcomes conveyed within the executive education strategy

PURPOSE OF ROLE

The Dubai campus has traditionally been reliant on student recruitment, as the single mode of income generation. Whilst the campus will continue to rely on this as a primary source of income, our strategy going forward is in income diversification, particularly through engagement with Industry and Government. HWUD’s transition to CAA accreditation with the MOE (UAE) augments this shift in strategy. This will be achieved through multiple channels including but not limited to offering B2B/B2C/ Study tours/ consultancies and corporate packages at the Masters/Doctoral levels to potential clients.

SUMMARY OF KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

This is a specialist role which will be responsible for designing and developing the executive education function and taking advantages of the significant opportunities within the sector, if properly utilised. The successful candidate will be charged with developing and implementing a high-level strategy to ensure that the ‘product’ is marketable and competitive in the UAE and regionally. They will also look to take advantage of opportunities to develop partnerships with organisations that the University already engages with in other business areas, as well as identifying wider opportunities to capture significant market-share within executive education.
This is a unique challenge and opportunity to maximise the function within the Dubai Campus and to develop a strategy that can reach the previously untapped potential within the executive education sector.
In addition to the key strategic elements of the role, the individual must be capable of mapping out our future client-base and the ability to clearly articulate our product to develop our reach.
You will own and build the executive education function at Heriot-Watt University Dubai. The post-holder will be primarily tasked with this role but must also work and collaborate closely with academic staff across the schools in Dubai and with colleagues where necessary in our global campuses in Scotland and Malaysia.

KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develop a business plan which can deliver the strategic objectives for executive education, set out by the Business and Enterprise leadership and Senior Management of the Dubai Campus. The role is supported directly by an Executive Education Senior Manager and Executive Education Officer and externally by the broader Business and Enterprise Global Team.
• Assess the full review of the existing function and resource, as well as the scope of the opportunity should the department reach its potential. Then map out how to deliver this potential, highlighting key milestones and performance indicators and outlining the resource required to deliver this.
  Define and develop “productsâ€� and USPs, drawing on the university’s capabilities, strengths and capacity.
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  Provide a full overview of the existing potential to offer executive education by having a thorough understanding of academic staff skills and areas of expertise.
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• Identify opportunities for us to develop our product to capitalise our market share within the executive education space. The product should have a clear unique selling point and we should be able to articulate and expand upon this with our clients both present and future, presenting a clear value-add to both organisations and the individuals undertaking further education.

• Define the state of the executive education landscape in the UAE and relative comparison between that of our competitors. Work closely with key academics to ensure that the education being provided is applicable and marketable to the organisations and individuals we engage with. As well as delivering high quality further education and training within the fields we currently operate in, also identify new areas of demand for skillsets and fields that have not previously been provided as part of our offering.
• Identify existing and new opportunities to develop partnerships with industry. The University has an extensive and diverse range of partnerships with industry both in Scotland and abroad through our programmes; Graduate Apprenticeships, Intern Programme, GRID and Development & Alumni Office. The successful candidate will be charged with undertaking a thorough examination of what relationships exist across the University and working collaboratively with other departments and directorates to utilise these relationships in the context of executive education. They will also be required to identify new opportunities for commercial collaboration with new clients and industries and then developing these partnerships within executive education.

Develop and deliver a robust sales and marketing strategy for the programme that will; utilise existing relationships, grow new partnerships and generate market traction. Working with colleagues across the University, to successfully market our executive education offering in a way that will generate wider interest, attracting a wider range of clients being driven to the programme through it

• ‘s improved reputation and reach. A comprehensive and well-co-ordinated marketing strategy will be a key element of delivering the outcomes conveyed within the executive education strategy.

Meet agreed annual financial targets for Executive Education.
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MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

• Actively manage key accounts and identify opportunities for growth.
• Provide guidance, coaching and support team members with subject matter expertise.

Grow a ‘sales pipeline

• ' of opportunities that meet executive education targets
• Work to achieve revenue targets for new business development activity

Identify, develop, and secure new funding related to economic development and growth.
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