Regional Director of Sales & Admissions

Job Description

ISP Principles

Begin with our children and students. Our children and students are at the heart of what we do. Simply, their success is our success. Wellbeing and safety are both essential for learners and learning. Therefore, we are consistent in identifying potential safeguarding and Health & Safety issues and acting and following up on all concerns appropriately.

Treat everyone with care and respect. We look after one another, embrace similarities and differences and promote the well-being of self and others.

Operate effectively. We focus relentlessly on the things that are most important and will make the most difference. We apply school policies and procedures and embody the shared ideas of our community.

Are financially responsible. We make financial choices carefully based on the needs of the children, students and our schools.

Learn continuously. Getting better is what drives us. We positively engage with personal and professional development and school improvement.

ISP Key Responsibilities

1: Ensure that the defined admissions procedures and processes in schools are consistently implemented to maximise enrolments.

• Take ownership of, and hold the admissions teams accountable to deliver the agreed admissions targets.
• Develop policies and practice documentation to ensure best practice alignment across the Region.
• Deliver a clear vision and strategy for the region with effective communication to all stakeholders.
• Able to review and quality-assure strategy against outcome and think flexibly to meet market demands.
• Continue to implement and enhance the admissions procedures in the Region aligned to the ISP reporting framework. 
• Ensure procedures are clearly defined, reviewed and processed on and between the group CRM and MIS to efficiently manage and nurture qualified leads and appointments to successful enrolments. 
• Support schools to continue to improve ISP admissions procedures so they maximise efficiency. Ensure teams are trained in processes and procedures regularly through face-to-face training to troubleshoot issues and find solutions.
• Continue to contribute and develop the ISP admissions toolkit according to best practices for seamlessly enrolling students and taking regional compliance into account.
• Create Best Practice working groups in the region to better evaluate and share efficient admissions work across schools.
• Work with the central team to support training modules and ensure this is contextualised and supported with country-driven professional development for school and regional teams.
• Lead the regional call centre to ensure they deliver qualified leads to schools.
• Keep up to date on country market demands and changes, including visa regulations, to ensure offers conditional on meeting requirements are correctly identified and processed efficiently.
• Ensure the admission assessment process for each school in  is defined and provides a well-managed, personal, and positive experience for families. 

Key Responsibility 2: Working with agents and creating new business. 

• In collaboration with the agents, clearly define a strategy for the region to maximise agent enrolments. 
• Develop a comprehensive and effective agent network.
• Continue to develop admissions processes with Heads of School that support faster overseas student enrolments.
• Develop admissions teams at the school level to communicate content messaging effectively to agents.
• Develop agent sales materials, including comprehensive video content, to ensure effective messages about our schools are effectively communicated in key overseas markets.
• Develop a B2B network to collaborate on partnerships with employees and track the performance of these initiatives.
• Ensure there is a planned costing strategy for the overseas strategy to deliver value for money.
• Ensure the agent engagement team has clear planned actions for each year, and these link to target-based appraisal documentation.
• Keep up to date with market trend analysis and adapt the strategy based on local, national, and regional trend data. 

Key Responsibility 3: Ensure regions and schools work to achieve enrolment targets and provide accurate and timely data reporting.

• Help communicate, agree, and deliver school enrolment targets in line with clear reporting frameworks.
• Work with the school´s admissions staff, Heads of School, Financial Planners and Analysts and Regional Financial Director to ensure the importance of accurate and timely data entry and reporting.
• Work closely with Heads of School and Regional Sales/Admissions team to ensure targets are reflected within school appraisal documents.
• Deliver effective communication strategies to all stakeholders to understand and forecast conversion rates so the budget can be met or adapted.
• Along with Heads of School, ensure Heads of Sales/Admissions make school teams accountable for improvement in enrolments.
• Support schools with consistent, accurate tracking and reporting of the sales funnel, conversion rates.
• Ensure all pipeline reporting narratives are clear to key stakeholders, particularly when reporting to the central global team. 
• Ensure that over time, we get better, and targets improve using clear target-driven long and short-term plans.
• Ensure there is a continual review of reporting formats, both upwards to central and downwards to schools, to maximise gaps and support with a clear narrative of the current situation with enrolments. 
• Forecast student numbers effectively at regular intervals using effective data sets and contextual knowledge to regional, divisional, and global teams. Work with Power BI data.
• Work with the Regional Finance Director to ensure budgetary enrolment numbers are realistic and ambitious and create plans to ensure these are met. 

Key Responsibility 4: Ensure a positive admission customer experience on schools. 

• Manage an annual incentive plan for all admissions and retention related staff to help target achievement.
• Establish strong working relationships with regional team members, school Senior Leadership Teams and school admissions colleagues to maximise impact.
• Ensure school admissions teams work closely with marketing teams to deliver enrolment targets.
• Ensure that all admissions colleagues can identify and understand FAQs from potential parents, update and summarise the most frequent objections from potential parents with corresponding best responses, and clearly articulate their school story and promises.
• Support the customer experience programme and audit school admissions processes to ensure schools are delivering concierge-level customer service to prospective parents across all the main touchpoints.
• Work with the school team on a customer journey experience from admission to enrolment.
• Ensure collaterals across the pipeline has clear messaging linked to ISP and school´s USPs. 
• Deliver frequent (at least termly) admissions workshops to ensure admissions staff are fully trained in processes, procedures, and their approach to supporting prospective and existing families.
• Work with schools to ensure continuous active engagement with feeder schools and local businesses, and ensure that the schools are kept up to date and can maximise on ISP Group-wide partnerships in .  

Stakeholders:

• Internal:  Heads of School; Regional Finance Director, School Admissions and Marketing leaders.
• External: Parents, Agents, Businesses.

Line Management: 

• Reporting to Postholder:  Functional School Sales/Admissions  teams and Regional Sales/Admissions Manager.
• The Regional Director of Sales & Admissions,  reports directly to the Regional Managing Director, with a matrix reporting line to the Divisional Chief Revenue Officer Europe and Iberia.

Skills, Qualifications and Experience

• University degree preferably in Marketing, Business, Commerce or a related field.
• At least 10 years’ experience in senior Sales and Marketing roles, ideally within consumer-facing, service-led or growth-driven sectors (e.g. education, hospitality, healthcare, real estate, FMCG or professional services).
• Proven track record in driving revenue growth, market share expansion, customer acquisition and conversion optimisation.
• Experience leading multi-site sales strategies is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in leading and developing high-performing, multi-disciplinary sales and marketing teams.
• Strong strategic leadership capability, with the ability to set direction, influence senior stakeholders, and translate strategy into execution.
• Proven ability to coach, train and uplift teams in sales effectiveness, customer engagement and conversion techniques.
• Confident operating in matrix or complex organisational structures, with the ability to partner closely with school leaders and school functional team

ISP Principles

Begin with our children and students. Our children and students are at the heart of what we do. Simply, their success is our success. Wellbeing and safety are both essential for learners and learning. Therefore, we are consistent in identifying potential safeguarding

and Health & Safety issues and acting and following up on all concerns appropriately.

Treat everyone with care and respect. We look after one another, embrace similarities and differences and promote the well-being of self and others.

Operate effectively. We focus relentlessly on the things that are most important and will make the most difference. We apply school policies and procedures and embody the shared ideas of our community.

Are financially responsible. We make financial choices carefully based on the needs of the children, students and our schools.

Learn continuously. Getting better is what drives us. We positively engage with personal and professional development and school improvement.

ISP Commitment to Safeguarding Principles

ISP is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All post holders are subject to appropriate vetting procedures, including an online due diligence search, references and satisfactory Criminal Background Checks or equivalent covering the previous 10 years’ employment history.

ISP Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

ISP is committed to strengthening our inclusive culture by identifying, hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing teammates regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender expression, age, disability status, neurodivergence, socio-economic background or other demographic characteristics. Candidates who share our vision and principles and are interested in contributing to the success of ISP through this role are strongly encouraged to apply.