Building international connections in India

In May 2023, Professor Eleri Rosier travelled to India to meet Cardiff Business School offer holders, alumni and international partners.

The productive trip helped to forge relationships with our community in India. Professor Eleri Rosier tells us about her experience…

“I was delighted to visit India to meet our in-country team and visit key cities from which we welcome students to Cardiff Business School every year. With India such a strategically important market for Cardiff University, it was good to be back in person after the pandemic making travelling so challenging over the past few years.

I visited as part of my role as Director of Postgraduate Admissions and Recruitment at Cardiff Business School, along with Sarah Sherrington, Student Recruitment Manager for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Offer holder event in Mumbai

Shortly after arriving in very hot, busy and noisy Mumbai we hosted an event for Cardiff University offer holders at the Taj Hotel. With the event lasting over 3 hours, it was wonderful to speak with students and their parents in person; many I had already liaised with frequently over emails and LinkedIn, with the longest Q&A session I have ever experienced!

MBA alumni dinner

Thanks to the Alumni Relations team, we hosted an alumni dinner with previous MBA students and spent the evening reminiscing about their time in Cardiff. Our hope is that they will now re-kindle an alumni chapter in Mumbai, running networking events to engage with other alumni in the area.

Meeting prospective students

Along with Dheeraj Kumar, Senior International Officer in our India in-country team, we visited two of our key agents in Mumbai at both IDP Education and SI-UK, where we were fortunate to meet with prospective students. We helped to answer many questions about our entry criteria with agent staff and provide vital training for them about our programmes.

Offer holder events in Bangalore and Coimbatore

With Priyanka Saluja, our Assistant International Officer based in India, we hosted more hugely successful offer-holder events in Bangalore and Coimbatore. These are both key destinations that attract many applications to our business school postgraduate programmes. It was particularly nice to meet MBA applicants in person who had been through the interview process with us. We talked to them about Cardiff ahead of them starting their programme with us in the autumn.

I should also add that as this was my first ever visit to India, it was wonderful to visit such different cities with a whole host of delicacies to try!

Meeting partners, offer holders and alumni in New Delhi

Our last stop was to New Delhi in over 40-degree heat to visit the main SI-UK agency in the famous Connaught Place. We met with and trained some counsellors and spoke to students about their offers.

We managed to work on our haggling skills at some street stalls there before heading to the iconic Ambassador Hotel for a very busy offer holder event, with most attendees holding offers for Cardiff Business School. The India team helped us to host this event followed by another hugely successful alumni event that evening. Our attendees were alumni from both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. A fabulous evening was had with them, with no doubt that we will now be able to restart a New Delhi alumni chapter in the near future.

It was simply fantastic to visit India for the first time, to connect with key agents and advise potential students. It was an even greater pleasure to inform students and their families of why they would enjoy coming to Cardiff Business School and I’m hopeful that I will get to meet with them when they start with us in the autumn. It's been an amazing experience to work alongside the incredibly hard-working India team who looked after us so well.”