Senior Advisor (Education) - Contract

About the Role

Senior Advisor advises I nstitutes of Higher Learning across Singapore on the modernisation of their academic and student administration estates, from strategy and operating model through solution design, implementation and adoption.

This role is the practice's resident authority on higher education enterprise applications and student management systems. It exists so that what client propose and build is grounded in how these systems actually get designed, implemented and adopted at an IHL, rather than in generic method. The advisor works across the client portfolio, shapes pursuits, and builds the capability of the wider team.

Domain Coverage

The role covers the student academic lifecycle end to end, from the academic structures an institution sets up each year, through enrolment and registration, assessment and examinations, progression and academic standing, to graduation, conferment and credentials, including both coursework and research candidature and the student record that runs alongside.

It extends to the surrounding enterprise application estate that student systems integrate with, including finance, human capital and constituent relationship management, and to the integration, data and reporting layers that connect them.

What You Will Do

Client Advisory

1. Act as the functional and solution advisor on student system engagements, from current state assessment and requirements through to target solution design, taking positions that hold up under client scrutiny.
2. Advise on product and platform selection, including fit-gap assessment against packaged student systems and composable or software as a service alternatives, with a clear view of where each genuinely performs and where the gaps usually appear.
3. Distinguish sector standard practice from institution specific practice and from legacy workaround that should not be carried forward, and make that distinction defensible in front of client process owners.
4. Shape integration and functional design across the wider application estate, including the interfaces between student, finance, human capital and identity systems.
5. Advise on release sequencing and change timing against the academic calendar, including registration windows, results release and graduation cycles, and the periods in which change cannot safely land.
6. Advise on target operating model and change management, including role redesign, adoption planning and the balance of responsibility between central academic services and decentralised school or faculty administration.
7. Advise programme and project leadership on governance, delivery risk and mitigation, and review client facing deliverables before they go out.
8. Act as a trusted counterpart to client directors and academic leadership, building the credibility that allows difficult recommendations to be accepted.

Practice and Portfolio

1. Advise across the higher education portfolio, bringing consistency of position between engagements and carrying lessons from one institution into the next without breaching confidence.
2. Contribute to pursuits and proposals, shaping the functional response, testing the credibility of proposed scope, approach and estimate, and presenting to clients where domain depth is the differentiator.
3. Develop and maintain practice assets, including capability and process reference models, requirement libraries, localised solution extensions and accelerated implementation templates for the Singapore market.
4. Build capability in the wider team, mentoring practice leads, consultants and analysts on the education domain.

Required Experience

• At least 15 years of professional experience in enterprise applications, with sustained specialisation in student management or student information systems.
• Direct involvement in multiple student system implementations, upgrades or replacements at higher education institutions, in senior roles such as solution architect, functional lead, project or programme manager, or change management lead. Depth across several institutions matters more than years on any one.
• Hands on functional and solution design experience with at least one major SIS, with the ability to describe it against packaged and SaaS systems such as Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, Workday Student, Ellucian or equivalent, including configuration decisions, extension design and the integration footprint.
• Working knowledge of the Singapore higher education environment, including how local institutions are organised and governed and the statutory and sector reporting obligations that apply to them.
• Demonstrated ability to hold a position in front of senior stakeholders, including chairing or contributing substantively to workshops and steering forums with directors and academic leadership.
• Experience in a consulting, systems integrator or software vendor environment, working to defined deliverables, milestones and acceptance criteria.
• Ability to write and review functional and solution documentation to a standard that survives client sign off.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional standing.