Andrew Disbury
Andrew Disbury is an independent professional with thirty years’ experience in international education leadership and management roles based in England, Scotland and China, as well as extensive experience of the Indian and US education markets.
As Vice Principal & Pro Vice Chancellor for Global Engagement at the University of the West of Scotland, Andrew led global engagement strategy and was the executive lead for London Campus. He also introduced major initiatives with China as part of developing the university’s presence there. As International Director at Leeds Beckett University Andrew led on international marketing, student recruitment, and admissions to the UK, managing colleagues at home and in India and Beijing. As the British Council’s Education Director in China in the early nineties, Andrew led on bi-lateral education diplomacy, education reform projects in China, and marketing the UK as a study abroad destination to the Chinese market in the days when student numbers to the UK increased rapidly.
Andrew’s experience and interests include:
- developing, implementing and reviewing international education strategy;
- re-designing and streamlining the pre-enrollment customer journey through marketing, student recruitment, admissions, and student visa processing;
- multi-office team development and management both across campuses, cities and countries;
- personal effectiveness for business success in the cross-cultural context; and
- diversity and inclusion both in staff management and customer services.
As well as participating Studyportals’ commercial advisory board for UK & Ireland, Andrew is an active member of the European Association for International Education, serving currently as chair of the Awards & Talent Committee.
As an undergraduate student in the 1980s Andrew benefited from student exchange schemes that allowed him to spend 18 months of a four-year Languages degree studying overseas; he is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.