Simisola Smith

Passionate autobody shop owner with a flair for restoration and customization, balancing the artistry of automotive craftsmanship alongside a successful career in international recruitment. Bringing meticulous attention to detail and business acumen to both endeavors, ensuring exceptional results in every aspect of my professional pursuits.

Activities: • Strategic Planning: Developing and executing a comprehensive recruitment strategy tailored to the African market, aligning with business objectives and expansion plans. • Talent Acquisition: Leading end to end recruitment processes, including sourcing, screening and interviewing for roles. • Market Research: Conducting market research and analysis to identify talent trends, competitor strategies, and emerging recruitment opportunities in Africa. • Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborating with internal stakeholders, including HR, department heads, and leadership teams, to understand hiring needs and ensure recruitment efforts meet business requirements. • Employer Branding: Enhancing brand visibility and market penetration for UAP. • Partnerships and Networking: Establishing and maintaining relationships with partners, such as recruitment agencies, universities, and professional organizations, to expand the talent pipeline and strengthen UAP’s presence in the African Market.

• Overseeing the entire regional operations for student recruitment in Africa. • Expanding, leading, mentoring, managing, and training sales teams across multiple locations in Africa to achieve sales goals. The number of student enrolments from Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda doubled under my leadership as part of our strategy to broaden market scope outside Nigeria. • Building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders, including educational institutions, government bodies, and partner organizations. • Analyzing market trends and identifying opportunities for growth. • Enhancing brand visibility and market penetration for all BSBI campuses. • Formulated easy step by step visa application processes and guides for team members and partners across Africa on all BSBI study locations. • Sustaining growth and success in student numbers, agent network expansion and partner collaborations. • Leading on marketing information systems (statistics, target market information, competitor analysis etc.) to facilitate strategic decision making for marketing & management purposes in Africa for our campuses In Germany, Spain, France, and Greece. • Managing the marketing & promotions budget for Africa to meet the student targets in the most cost-effective manner for our campuses In Germany, France, and Greece.

• Formulated effective solutions to maintain market share in the region during German student visa appointment difficulties and Covid-19, thereby making us the biggest private business school recruiter of African students to Germany. • Expanded and led the student recruitment team in Africa beginning from Nigeria. • Maintained student enrolment numbers in Nigeria despite socio-economic bottle necks. • Conducted market research to identify emerging trends and student preferences. • Increased enrolments from other parts of Africa by 67%. • Monitored and reported on key performance indicators to assess the effectiveness of recruitment efforts. • Worked with department teams to select, evaluate, and approve opportunities for growth in the market that contributed to expanding our campuses to Hamburg, Paris, and Athens in 2021.

• Spearheaded business development initiatives to expand the company's presence in Africa. • Led B2B and B2B2C strategies that brought about an increase of application pipelines from 0 to over 200 application pipelines in under one year. • Successfully converted over 70% of application pipelines to enrollments in one year. • Cultivated relationships with educational institutions, agents, and other stakeholders. • Developed and delivered presentations to prospective partners and clients. • Collaborated with the marketing team to create targeted campaigns. • Negotiated contracts and agreements with over 100 partners/agencies across Africa within a recruitment year. • Database management of students and agents to facilitate customer relationship management in Africa for the Berlin School of Business & Innovation, German. • Representing the Berlin School of Business & Innovation at relevant conferences and events and visit overseas agents and clients to promote courses and recruit students across Africa for the Berlin School of Business and Innovation, Germany.

• Implemented a B2C focused approach that yielded a 20% increase in student applications within 3 months, showing the effectiveness of target consumer-oriented strategies. • Handling campaigns with appropriate media to attract enquiries from prospective students and agents across Africa. • Contribution to research into partnership arrangements with institutions in Africa to leverage on Transnational Education opportunities in the region. • Managing partnerships across Africa with a focus on Nigeria, Ghana & Kenya. • Representing Lancaster University at relevant conferences and events to promote courses and recruit students across Africa.

• Consistently delivered rapid revenue growth, achieving 25% increase year-over-year on student enrollment, and positioning the organization for sustained financial success. • Managing agent network and partnerships across Africa with a focus on Nigeria, Ghana & Cameroon, and a minor focus on parts of East Africa (mainly Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda). • Contributing to marketing information systems (statistics, target market information, competitor analysis etc.) to facilitate strategic decision making for marketing & management purposes in Africa. • Database management of students and agents to facilitate customer relationship management in Africa. • Representing the University of Sunderland at relevant conferences and events and visit overseas agents and clients to promote courses and recruit students across Africa. • Managing the marketing & promotions budget for Africa to meet the student targets in the most cost-effective manner. • Preparing annual marketing reports for the African market to facilitate strategic decision- making by management.

• Successfully built marketing models and activities that produced a 500% increase in quality applications for the Nigerian Law Scholarship Fund which subsequently led to finding suitable candidates. • Supported with market analysis and marketing strategy for driving high quality student applications from Nigeria. • Established scholarship partnerships with organizations in Nigeria and increased the numbers of applications of high caliber candidates to available scholarship schemes within King’s and partner organizations. • Represented the institution at relevant conferences and events in Nigeria to increase brand awareness, promote courses and recruit students. • Project lead on what was recorded as King’s College London’s most successful and most attended alumni gathering across the world in celebration of Dual Day 2015.

• Single handedly built a non-existing partner network from Africa to over a 100 within a year, therefore establishing one of the strongest agent networks from the region for any UK institution. This led to over 700% growth in student enrolment numbers in one year. • Handled campaigns with appropriate media to attract enquiries from prospective students and agents across Africa. • Lead on marketing information systems (statistics, target market information, competitor analysis etc.) to facilitate strategic decision making for marketing & management purposes. • Representing the institution at relevant conferences and events and visit overseas agents and clients to promote courses and recruit students. • Managing the marketing & promotions budget to meet the student targets in the most cost- effective manner. Preparing annual marketing reports to facilitate strategic decision making by management. • Led on research into partnership arrangements with institutions in Africa leveraging on progression agreements in the region.

• Played a leading role in the development and implementation of the ‘Personal Tutor Charter’ with the aim of improving the pastoral support of students. • Researched and developed a representative structure across five campuses in central London, making communication with key stakeholders more effective. • Instigated a structure which dramatically improved representation of LGBT students, disabled students, women and BME students in decision making processes at King’s College London. • Engaged students, senior academics, and external organizations, improving overall reputation of King’s College London locally and nationally. • Led on campaigns against cuts to higher education and tuition fee rises including building relationships with key MPs and coordinating highly successful petitions. • Committee membership on Academic Boards, Award Committees and HR committees within King’s College London.