Executive Education Manager Dubai Campus

Job Title: Executive Education Manager

Grade: G7

Department: Business and Enterprise

Location: Dubai Campus

FTE and Working Pattern: 1 FTE Fulltime

Organisation Name: Business and Enterprise (Dubai) Executive Education

About our School/Directorate and Team:

The Business and Enterprise Directorates vision is to shape a better future through collaborative industry partnerships and start-up facilitation fostering a culture that promotes and celebrates innovation and entrepreneurship whilst growing a globally connected ecosystem that delivers significant value to our students staff partners and communities. By achieving this vision we can unlock new opportunities for revenue generation and economic impact.

Business and Enterprise aims to drive new opportunities and outcomes aligned to the Universitys Strategy 2025 by providing the highest quality business development and commercialisation support that enables Heriot-Watt to build on its research strength industry engagement and unlock new opportunities funding and investment irrespective of geographical location.

The UAE has embarked on a journey of economic transformation diversifying its economy and reducing dependence on oil revenues. Industry engagement is critical in this process as they facilitate the exchange of expertise technology and investment opportunities. The ever-changing world of business requires even the most experienced leaders to adapt through new skills and ways of thinking. At Heriot-Watt University Dubai the focus is on equipping industry and their businesses to navigate this challenging world. The University provides a portfolio of innovative courses that help organisations reach their objectives and gain competitive advantage through targeted online/hybrid/face to face competency-based courses bespoke and accredited programmes.

Building on the pan-university initiative for Executive Education team established in 2024 and given the rapid growth within the last 12 months the university is seeking to appoint a Manager with demonstrated experience in this area to lead the development and growth of the same in its second year of operations.

The work undertaken in 2024/2025 with stakeholders has clearly enhanced the universitys reputation locally and now regionally and its positioning with industry which is set to scale up further. An excellent year of pan-university initiative with immense efforts in establishing a new unit foundation and executive education portfolio across all schools at HWUD developing a solid pipeline from scratch of 20 potential training opportunities across UAE KSA and Kuwait and securing a few major high-value wins across locations. The expectation and ambition are for the unit to become a mainstay for driving other income and enhancing the positioning of the university.

Vision of the Executive Education Department

To become one of the leading Universitiesin the Middle East region and globally for delivering high-quality bespoke and agile executive education programs to empower upskill and reskill future leaders. To have a significant impact in organizations and communities globally whilst becoming one of the major income drivers for the University and strengthening its brand.

Mission of the Executive Education Department

Designing and delivering bespoke executive education programs and professional trainings for clients in public and private sectors across a variety of industries and markets assisting them in identifying their learning needs and meeting required learning outcomes delivered face to face online or in a blended format by experts drawn from the Heriot-Watt global ecosystemand its strategic industry partners.

Purpose of Role

This role which will support and shadow the Head- Executive Education to continue shaping the executive education portfolio taking advantages of the significant opportunities within the sector given the increased interest from wider region interest from clients. The successful candidate will be charged with developing and managing bids to take advantage of opportunities to develop partnerships with organisations that the University already engages with in other business areas as well as identifying wider opportunities to capture significant market-share within executive education.

Building on the success of 2024-2025 Exec Ed HWUD establishment and piloting within a 10-month period the current department created a strong pipeline with a total value of AED52 mln and signed contracts (Kuwait Foundation of Advanced Sciences Asian Banking School Legal Affairs Department King Abdullah Financial District Sungrow and more) the role will further expand and drive sustainable revenue global visibility long-term external engagement with industry and government on a larger scale.

The individual must be capable of mapping out our future client-base pro-actively create as well as win a pipeline and the ability to clearly articulate our product to develop our reach. The post-holder will be required to work closely and collaboratively closely with academic staff across the schools in Dubai and with colleagues where necessary in our global campuses in Scotland and Malaysia as well as with external stakeholders and clients.

Summary of Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• To provide a full range of confidential bid and administrative and project management support to the Head- Executive Education and through direction from the latter
• Lead generation follow up with leads and further client retention including owning the project management oversight for deliveries.
• Carry out research and analysis of the executive education landscape in the UAE and relative comparison between that of our competitors. Work closely with key academics to ensure that the education being provided is applicable and marketable to the organisations and individuals we engage with.
• Identify new areas of demand for skillsets and fields that have not previously been provided as part of our offering.
• Define and develop products and USPs drawing on the universitys capabilities strengths and capacity.
• Develop and manage bids and proposals to existing and prospective stakeholders by having a full overview of the existing potential to offer executive education by having a thorough understanding of academic staff skills and their areas of expertise
• Identify existing and new opportunities to develop partnerships with industry
• Develop and deliver a robust sales and marketing strategy for training and consultancy offerings that will; utilise existing relationships grow new partnerships and generate market
• Develop and manage bids and proposals to existing and prospective stakeholders by having a full overview of the existing potential to offer executive education by having a thorough understanding of academic staff skills and their areas of expertise
• Identify existing and new opportunities to develop partnerships with industry
• Develop and deliver a robust sales and marketing strategy for training and consultancy offerings that will; utilise existing relationships grow new partnerships and generate market traction.

Education Experience and Qualifications

Essential

• Educated at the graduate level (MSc or MBA preferred)
• Knowledge and understanding of the executive education market (UAE and KSA preferred)
• End-to-end planning and delivery experience with large clients
• Ability to clearly define and deliver a sales strategy and building partnerships with external organisations and being able to articulate the product offerings clearly and concisely
• Proven track record in developing and managing bids
• Excellent at multitasking and organizing - managing resources workloads and changing priorities.
• Demonstrable ability to work within a fast-changing innovation environment.
• Proven experience of developing propositions and securing funding agreements
• Excellent communication influencing and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrated networking and stakeholder management skills.

Desirable

• Experience of Salesforce or comparable CRM System
• Experiences working with graphics editor software programs such as Illustrator etc
• Past experience of working with senior academics to design programs
• Strong commercial and technical expertise (preferably in an R&D environment)
• Special Factors
• May be requirement to work at weekends or out of hours
• May be requirement to occasionally travel internationally (for example KSA Kuwait etc)

Heriot-Watt University Values

With a history dating back to 1821 Heriot-Watt University has established a reputation for world-class teaching and professionally relevant leading-edge research which has made it one of the top UK universities for business and industry.

We are a vibrant forward-looking university well known for the quality of our degrees with employers actively seeking out our graduates. Heriot-Watt is also Scotlands international university with an unsurpassed international in-country presence. We deliver degree programmes to circa 30000 students in 143 countries around the world have a further overseas campus in Dubai and boast the largest international student cohort in Scotland.

At Heriot-Watt weve created an environment that nurtures innovation and leadership - where our researchers staff and students can realise their potential and develop their ambitions.

We are proud of our collegiate atmosphere and integrated teaching and research approach which has helped to build a community of committed academics and highly motivated students. Our focus on careers delivers results and weve an excellent reputation for graduate employability.

In addition to the Edinburgh campus we currently have campuses in the Scottish Borders Orkney Dubai and Malaysia. For all of our campuses we aim to provide stimulating supportive environments conducive to effective learning and research where staff and students can excel. At Heriot-Watt we have an established set of values that help us to nurture innovation and leadership and show our commitment to continuous improvement and development in all our activities.

Our values describe our deeply held beliefs and our community spirit. They characterise not only how we are as a higher education institution but also frame how we want to be.

Our values are:

• Belong
• Collaborate
• Inspire
• Celebrate

As learning living and working institution we use our values as the building blocks of how we go about doing our work and how we each conduct ourselves as members of Heriot-Watt University. They represent what binds us together as a University community and help us to become the best at what we do.

For full details on our University please view our website to Apply

Please submit your CV and a cover letter setting out how you meet the criteria for this role.

Shortlisted candidates may be invited to complete an on-demand-video interview as the first stage of the selection process. Successful candidates will then proceed to in-person formal interviews at our Dubai campus where you will be asked to deliver a brief presentation on a relevant topic. Following the formal interview the preferred candidate will attend a second interview with senior staff at the Dubai campus before a final offer decision is made.

Start date for this role is set to be February 2026

At Heriot Watt we are passionate about our values and look to them to connect our people globally and to help us collaborate and celebrate our success through working together. Our research programmes can deliver real world impact which is achieved through the diversity of our international community and the recognition of creative talent that connects our global team.

Our flourishing community will give you the freedom to challenge and to bring your enterprising mind and to help our partners with solutions that can be applied now and in the future. Join us and Heriot Watt will provide you with a platform to thrive and work in a way that also helps you live your life in balance with well-being and inclusiveness at the heart of our global community.

Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected trained promoted appraised and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities. Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all.

The appointment is conditional upon successful completion of all Labor and Immigration formalities and the start date will need to be delayed if the employment visa is not in place.