The P&Q Interview: Iis Tussyadiah On The ‘Major Restructure’ At Surrey Business School

When she took up the mantle in August 2024, Iis Tussyadiah’s first priority was overseeing the merging of the business school with Surrey’s School of Hospitality and Business Management.

If the last couple years leading an institution through a massive overhaul and acute budgetary pressures have taken any pep out of her step, Iis Tussyadiah doesn’t show it. The Surrey Business School dean has an upbeat tone and mischievous smile that’s at odds with the weight of her task.

“I came into the role when the university had completed a major restructuring and needed to correct course for financial reasons,” she tells Poets&Quants from her office on a late spring morning.

When she took up the mantle in August 2024, Tussyadiah’s first priority was overseeing the merging of the business school with Surrey’s School of Hospitality and Business Management. These days, her focus has turned from handling delicate logistics within the school to grappling with external factors.

“One of my biggest challenges is consistently delivering our growth,” she says. “Our new vice-chancellor has ambitious targets, including increasing overseas student numbers by 50%.”

A petite brunette of South Asian heritage, Tussyadiah stands out among UK business school deans who trend older, white and male. Originally from Indonesia, she grew up in a remote village there before becoming a first-generation university graduate, getting her master’s in engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology, followed by a PhD at Japan’s Tohoku University. Her background could also prove a sizable advantage in developing partnerships in Southeast Asia, an increasingly important source of students for Surrey’s business school.

In the most recent of Poets&Quants’s series of interviews with UK b-school deans, Tussyadiah speaks about her tenure so far as dean and the hurdles ahead.

You’re coming up to two years in the role – tell us about it?

When I joined, a significant transformation process was already underway within the faculty, which changed from Arts and Social Sciences to Arts, Business, and Social Sciences. We had nine schools, which were restructured into three larger schools. My first priority was to review the structure within the school. The business school merged with the School of Hospitality and Business Management, so I wanted to make sure we had the right organizational structure.

What’s been keeping you busy?

My appointment was announced in May. As an internal candidate, I started taking on parts of the role during May and June while we agreed our priorities for the next five years. The first year was about putting the right structure in place to implement the strategy. We reconfigured our disciplines into five, balancing numbers and strengths while concentrating expertise around our programs.

In the second year, the faculty established a new strategy. My role has been translating that into a school strategy, reviewing our portfolio, introducing new programs, and making the difficult decision to withdraw some others. Growth became the priority. We’re investing more in facilities and initiatives that demonstrate the value of the degree and the student experience. We’re also diversifying revenue through non-degree offerings while strengthening research through master’s programs. We launched the Hatchery [student-focused business incubator] last year and it has been very successful. The next step is scaling it so students from other schools and faculties can participate.

You’ve also got a plan to increase the number of business school students – how much growth are you expecting?

When I started, we had around 2,600 students. We now have just under 3,000, and my ambition is to grow to 3,500–4,000 over the next five years. That’s challenging because every university is trying to grow while international recruitment has become much more volatile. We’re focusing on niche areas and suites of master’s programs. Today we’re about two-thirds undergraduate and one-third master’s students, and I expect that balance to continue. I’m also conscious that the UK will have fewer 17- and 18-year-olds over the next four to five years, which will influence our recruitment strategy.

Surrey Business School is looking to Southeast Asia as a source of more students.

Where do your students come from?

Around two-thirds of our students are domestic. Before Covid we had more students from China; now we have more from India. Across the UK we’ve also seen fewer students from Nigeria because of exchange rates and visa changes. We’re working more closely with universities in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia on recruitment and research partnerships. Australia remains one of our biggest competitors in Southeast Asia. We’ve also started working with students completing their SQA [Scottish Qualifications Authority tests] before transferring into Surrey. We were initially concerned about quality, but they’ve performed very well and we expect those numbers to grow.

What are the top challenges in your role?

One of my biggest challenges is consistently delivering our growth. Our new vice-chancellor has ambitious targets, including increasing overseas student numbers by 50%. The university sees business programs as an important recruitment opportunity, so our growth is closely tied to the institution’s wider strategy. Last year another challenge was getting colleagues to buy into change. I introduced new work allocation guidelines, helped establish our Enterprise Centre and Hatchery, and wanted to create more of an ‘inside-out’ business school where businesses are actively involved in what we do.

Where are you breaking from the MBA model? How are you differentiating yourselves?

The MBA has been one of my biggest strategic challenges. We revamped it last year because I wanted it to be more progressive and more relevant. We’ve identified three key areas of strength. The first is AI. Surrey is well known for its people-centered AI institute, and we’ve created an AI in Business pathway within the MBA. The second is entrepreneurship – we can build on Surrey Research Park, a vibrant innovation ecosystem of startups and multinational companies, the SETsquared Partnership [business incubator], and the S100 Angel Investment Club. Third, we have hospitality management – we’re one of the strongest universities in the world in this field and has an outstanding alumni network.

We’re still finding MBA recruitment challenging because there’s a growing perception that businesses no longer need employees to complete an MBA and may instead prefer microcredentials. That’s why we’re moving toward a more modular MBA, so companies can adopt individual modules.

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