Senior Director of Marketing and Admissions

Role Purpose

A senior leadership role responsible for enrolment growth, shaping brand reputation, and the quality of the prospective parent experience at ISHCMC. Leads the Marketing and Admissions teams and serves as a primary representative of the school to prospective families, partners, and the wider community. Works closely with the Head of School, Senior Leaders, and Cognita Asia to align strategy, data insights, and operational delivery.

The role combines strong leadership, commercial acumen, and excellent relationship management to support ISHCMC’s continued growth and reputation as a leading international school in Vietnam.

Reports to: Head of School, ISHCMC

Scope of duties include but is not limited to:

Key Leadership Priorities

• Lead and develop high-performing teams across Marketing and Admissions.
• Represent ISHCMC professionally to prospective parents, corporate partners, relocation networks, and community organisations.
• Deliver a market-leading admissions journey grounded in empathy, responsiveness, and accuracy.
• Strengthen ISHCMC’s brand presence through compelling storytelling, digital campaigns, and consistent visual identity.
• Strengthen the multilingual presence of ISHCMC, ensuring that core messaging is conveyed in the mother tongue languages other than English and on nationality-focused media platforms across key languages, including Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Mandarin.
• Use data and market insight to guide strategic decisions, identify growth opportunities, and track performance.
• Build partnerships and networks that drive word-of-mouth advocacy and high-quality enrolment leads.
• Collaborate regionally with Cognita Asia to align strategy, ensure reporting accuracy, and share best practice.

Core Responsibilities

• Oversee full admissions cycle, ensuring strong conversion across all funnel stages.
• Develop and implement annual marketing plans aligned with enrolment and strategic priorities.
• Manage brand consistency, content creation, digital presence, and campaign execution.
• Analyse enrolment trends and market insights to support future planning and programme development.
• Ensure CRM accuracy, forecasting quality, and reporting compliance with Cognita standards.

What does success look like?

• The delivery of agreed-upon targets for student enrolments will be a key metric for success, as well as other quantifiable metrics, including brand recognition and levels of engagement with marketing and admissions events. These will be set annually in alignment with the broader school targets set within our Cognita schools group.

Required Profile

• 7+ years’ experience in marketing, admissions, or sales leadership.
• Proven ability to lead diverse teams and deliver growth.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• High digital and data proficiency, including CRM platforms.
• Background in international schooling or service-based industries an advantage.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in marketing, business, or a related discipline.

Key Relationships

Head of School

Executive Leadership Team

Director of Community Engagement

Cognita Asia Regional Marketing & Admissions teams

Academic and Support Teams

Parent community

Safeguarding Statement

The job holder is responsible for promoting the welfare and safeguarding of all students. Any concerns relating to student safety must be reported immediately in line with Cognita Child Protection and Safeguarding policies.

Terms of Employment

Full-time, fixed-term position

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Occasional evening and weekend work required

Background checks, reference checks, and safeguarding clearances required