Reflections on a career in international education, shaped by experience
I’ve been in a reflective mood recently, as I approach the end of my tenure as chief executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA). As the proud recipient of The PIE’s Lifetime Impact Award for 2026, I’ve had further reason to look back over my career and reflect on how international student experience has shaped my world professionally and personally.
What began as an integral part of my languages undergraduate degree has evolved into a fulfilling career, working to ensure others can access similar opportunities and transformative experiences.
As an Erasmus exchange student in France and Spain, and as an undergraduate and postgraduate in the UK, I made friends and connections with a global student community, including peers from Latin America, USA, Europe, New Zealand and North Africa. Those diverse social circles shaped my world view, while being away from home and studying in a second language taught me resilience and curiosity. I realised that we can be different and still have so much in common. I learned the importance of student support networks, and how they can be the difference between thriving or merely coping when you’re far from your family and friends at home.
After graduating, I spent 10 years in the language services industry. As well as being a great fit for someone with language and intercultural skills, it also enabled me to start giving back to students who came after me.
As an employer, I was able to provide opportunities for students from universities across London – many of them international – to access meaningful work experience. Supporting their employability felt like a way to give back with the practical experience that I hadn’t been able to benefit from. More importantly, I learned how students can benefit from short-term employability opportunities during their studies, or immediately postgraduation.
Moving into the public sector at the then-National Centre for Languages, I was able to directly support others in their personal and professional development, and enhance graduate employability. I became involved in groundbreaking Labour government-funded initiatives designed to encourage young people to see languages as a passport to opportunity, and national schemes that brought universities together to collaborate regionally and engage with local schools to promote language learning and intercultural skills.
It was here that I began to understand the importance of government policy in supporting the student experience. It was my first experience of connecting storytelling to policy initiatives, responding to labour market needs and UK government’s strategic ambitions.
After the coalition government came to power and Michael Gove as education secretary had other plans for the development of languages and intercultural skills, I built a freelance consultancy. This work expanded my knowledge of higher education, working directly to support various institutions, each with its own challenges to resolve and opportunities to seize. It was during this phase that the unique opportunity arose to move to Universities UK International (UUKi) and lead the first UK National Strategy on Outward Mobility. This expanded my policy knowledge and fostered a greater understanding of the impact of international students in the UK, alongside the impact of international experience on UK students.
Most recently, at UKCISA, I have been privileged to contribute to work that places the international student experience at the heart of policy advocacy. This role connects every thread of my career: student experience, intercultural exchange, student mobility, language, opportunity, and the power of global education to shape society.
Advocating at a national level is exhilarating and sobering in equal measure. The stakes are high, and narratives matter. When policy narratives can be dehumanising, UKCISA works to advocate for the person as well as the wider international student experience. One of the aspects of my career that has been most rewarding is the #WeAreInternational Student Ambassador Program, and the way that these individuals, with their inspiring stories, have shaped policy for themselves and their peers.
All of us working in international education can see beyond the media stories that generalise, because we know that students are individuals with their own story and their own ambitions. Their aspirations and their sacrifices deserve recognition and support, as do those that work in turn to enhance the international student experience. UKCISA’s #WeAreInternational work, our charter, our ambassadors and most recently, our awards, seek to help others to see that too.
The common thread that pulls it all together is a belief – shaped by personal experience – in the importance of international education for our society, and a commitment to helping international students feel included and supported to achieve whatever success means to them
The eagle-eyed among you will note that this has been an opportunistic rather than strategic career progression, but the common theme is that I have been able to work on programs and initiatives that led to opportunities for individuals from around the world, alongside talented, creative and compassionate individuals. When you’ve been as lucky as I am to have such fantastic colleagues and collaborators, it makes working life even more rewarding.
This collaborative approach will be essential, as the UK education sector navigates significant policy change ahead, with tighter Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) thresholds and the proposed introduction of an international student levy, it is vital that institutions and sector representatives work collectively to maintain our world-leading international student experience.
This self-reflection has reminded me of the advice I often give to students, or indeed to policymakers when discussing graduate employability – our careers don’t always plot a straight line, and success is not only measured in graduate schemes. My own has moved through different sectors, contrasting government policies, unexpected opportunities and personal challenges. The common thread that pulls it all together is a belief – shaped by personal experience – in the importance of international education for our society, and a commitment to helping international students feel included and supported to achieve whatever success means to them.
I’m proud of my impact to date, but I know that more lies ahead. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my career, it’s that international education isn’t just an industry – it creates meaningful connections at an individual and national level, fosters empathy, and leads to positive change. We need these things more than ever right now.
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