The Senior Director, Student Experience is responsible for designing, governing, and continuously improving the end-to-end student experience across the University & College, ensuring that all academic and non-academic touchpoints are coherent, student-centred, and aligned to institutional strategy.
The role exists to move student experience from fragmented service delivery to a deliberate, designed system, leveraging data, digital enablement, and service standards to improve student satisfaction, engagement, retention, and outcomes.
Key Accountabilities
1. End-to-End Student Experience Strategy
- Own the enterprise student experience framework, spanning the full student lifecycle (pre-enrolment to alumni transition).
- Translate institutional strategy into clear student experience principles, standards, and priorities.
- Identify critical experience gaps, pain points, and moments that matter, and drive targeted interventions.
- Ensure consistency of student experience across faculties, campuses, and institutions, while allowing for contextual flexibility.
2. Student Services Governance & Integration
- Provide strategic oversight and governance across student-facing functions (e.g. student services, wellbeing, campus life, academic services, career services, library and other support functions).
- Clarify roles, accountabilities, and service ownership across decentralised and central teams.
- Establish and enforce service standards, service levels, and escalation mechanisms.
- Reduce duplication, fragmentation, and inconsistent practices across the student services ecosystem.
3. Experience Design, Data & Insights
- Embed student journey mapping and service design as core capabilities.
- Leverage data (student feedback, surveys, complaints, retention data, analytics) to drive evidence-based improvements.
- Establish a single view of the student, in partnership with Digital & Technology teams.
- Use insights to inform prioritisation, investment decisions, and continuous improvement.
4. Digital Enablement of Student Experience
- Partner closely with Digital & Technology to ensure student experience requirements are embedded into systems, platforms, and digital initiatives.
- Champion digital self-service, automation, and omni-channel engagement to improve accessibility and efficiency.
- Ensure technology enhances - rather than complicates - the student journey.
5. Stakeholder & Academic Partnership
- Work in close partnership with academic leaders to align student experience initiatives with academic delivery and student success.
- Act as a connector between academics, operations, technology, and estates to resolve cross-cutting experience issues.
- Represent the student voice in enterprise decision-making forums.
6. Performance, Risk & Continuous Improvement
- Define and track student experience KPIs, including satisfaction, engagement, retention, and service performance.
- Ensure effective handling of student feedback, complaints, and systemic issues.
- Identify risks to student experience and recommend mitigations at institutional level.
7. Leadership & Capability Building
- Lead and develop senior student experience and student services leaders.
- Build organisational capability in service excellence, student-centric design, and continuous improvement.
- Foster a culture that prioritises empathy, accountability, and quality delivery.
Job Requirements
Education & Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (e.g. Education, Business Administration, Public Policy, or related discipline).
- Postgraduate qualification (Master's or equivalent) in Higher Education, Business, Leadership, or Service Design is highly desirable.
Experience
- 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in student experience, service delivery, operations, or customer experience within complex organisations.
- Demonstrated senior leadership experience in higher education or similarly complex, service-oriented environments (e.g. healthcare, government, large-scale service organisations).
- Proven track record of designing and implementing end-to-end service or customer experience strategies.
- Experience leading multi-functional teams and influencing across matrixed or decentralised structures.
- Strong experience in driving organisational transformation, continuous improvement, and service integration initiatives.
- Experience working closely with digital/technology teams to deliver system-enabled service improvements.
- Demonstrated success in using data, analytics, and insights to drive decision-making and measurable outcomes (e.g. satisfaction, retention).
Skills & Capabilities
- Strong strategic thinking with the ability to translate strategy into actionable frameworks and outcomes.
- Deep understanding of service design, journey mapping, and student/customer experience principles.
- Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, particularly across academic, operational, and executive levels.
- Strong governance and operating model design capability.
- Ability to lead through complexity, ambiguity, and organisational change.
- Data-driven mindset with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate vision and drive alignment across diverse groups.
