Stakeholder management across borders
How I aligned an acquired London campus with its Boston headquarters, brought in-country teams and global agents onto one workable scheme, and turned a flat commission model into a performance partnership that lifted recruitment from our strongest partners.
Onto one scheme after the acquisition
Part of my role is coordinating closely with in-country staff to help them hit demanding performance targets. After our campus was acquired by the Boston headquarters, we needed to align our agent partnerships with the existing North American scheme, so that agents already working with the US campuses could come on board with London both legally and operationally.
I started by organising review meetings with our in-country staff, listening to their feedback and understanding the specific challenges of each local market before changing anything.
Empowering the people closest to the market
Our colleagues in India had the most on-the-ground experience, so rather than taking a dominant role, I empowered them to lead the execution while I managed the other moving parts of the project. That gave the India team room to develop their skills and made the workflows that followed noticeably more efficient.
By combining our efforts into a single, unified report to the US, we helped headquarters make faster, better-informed decisions and optimise the overall working framework.
From one flat rate to a tiered structure
I also keep an eye out for continuous improvement. When I joined, the agent strategy ran on a one-size-fits-all contract: every agent received the same commission percentage regardless of scale or market impact, and we were not fully using the annual commission budget. To drive growth, I proposed and secured approval for a Tiered Commission Structure, moving us from a static model to a high-performance partnership framework.
For large-scale Big Players who prioritised our institution, I set higher commission brackets. For high-potential smaller agencies, I built a friendly but stable framework to foster long-term loyalty.
Built with local recruiters
Before finalising the tiers, I ran a series of consultations with country-based staff to gather their views ahead of signing or renewing any contract, making sure the new framework fit their market challenges and regional competitor benchmarks. We also clarified the commission settlement process for the trickier cases, such as an agent joining halfway through, or supporting only the first half of a student’s application.
What the new framework delivered
The plan delivered on the numbers and on the relationships.
- A 15–20% rise in recruitment from top-tier partners in the first cycle
- A stronger, more motivated agent network
- Incentives that were competitive and genuinely market-fit
- Fewer admin errors and payment delays once integrated with the US system
What I carry from it
Beyond the numbers, aligning with the US system cut administrative errors and payment delays and raised our service quality for agents worldwide. The lesson I hold onto is simple: incentives land best when the people closest to the market help shape them, and presenting a unified front to headquarters turns local insight into faster institutional decisions.