During my five years at Macquarie – a period unequivocally dominated by a global pandemic – I have been fortunate enough to lead a student recruitment team that has proven how resilient, adaptive and inventive a team can be. COVID-19 required universities to pivot like never before, and the impacts of the pandemic on the international student market persist in many parts of our organisation.

But one of the silver linings of COVID-19 was the impetus it gave us to re-think how we could structure our student recruitment functions to be responsive to an increasingly dynamic operating environment. Future-proofing Future Students was vital for our sustainability as an organisation.

The domestic and international recruitment teams were brought together in August 2021 to form Global and Domestic Student Recruitment. Global Partnerships and Protocol was also brought into the team in July of this year.

The synergy and efficiencies created by uniting these functions have helped us buffer the impacts of fluctuating international and domestic student numbers through and beyond the pandemic. Working as one team, we have been much more agile and flexible – able to allocate resources and expertise in response to the social, economic and geopolitical changes around us.

Our domestic and international teams are now sharing their knowledge and collaborating in ways that are exciting to witness. While all our different markets are distinctive and require their own carefully considered approaches, we have discovered many commonalities that create an environment ripe for collaboration. Our domestic and international teams, for example, have found much to learn from each other in their respective nurturing of our school career advisor and international education agent networks. I am also pleased to see staff from both teams take advantage of the increased career progression opportunities that have resulted from the amalgamation.

With our well-oiled and united machine working well, we recently took the decision to return to the name Future Students. It was important to us that our name reflected our deep engagement with students throughout multiple stages of their education journey. Like so many teams around the University, we work to create a strong sense of belonging for all students that see Macquarie in their future – whether they hail from Marsfield or Madagascar. We are grateful to the many teams and individuals across the University that support us in doing so.

Meet the Future Students leadership team

Maria Souris, Executive Director, Domestic Student Recruitment

David Harrison, Executive Director, International

Tim Hyde, Director, Student Acquisition and Conversion

Stephen Fan, Director, Global Partnerships and Protocol