Executive Director - Registrar and Enrollment Management

Department: Registrar and Enrollment Management

Reports to: President

Scope and Purpose:

The Executive Director – Registrar and Enrollment Management provides strategic leadership and executive oversight for Admissions, the Office of the Registrar, and the Office of Scholarship and Financial Aid. The role develops and implements an integrated enrollment-management strategy that supports student recruitment, access, retention, progression, and successful completion while protecting the integrity of institutional records and ensuring equitable administration of scholarships and financial assistance. The Executive Director establishes service standards, policies, controls, performance measures, and technology priorities; advises executive leadership on enrollment trends and risks; and leads cross-functional collaboration with Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Finance, Information Technology, Institutional Research, and other stakeholders. The position is accountable for compliant, accurate, timely, and student-centered delivery across the full enrollment lifecycle.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Strategic Enrollment Leadership and Planning: Develops and executes an integrated enrollment-management strategy aligned with AUK’s mission, academic priorities, capacity, and long-term goals. Establishes enrollment forecasts, targets, service standards, performance indicators, and coordinated annual plans across the three offices.
• Admissions and Student Recruitment Oversight: Directs recruitment, outreach, applicant engagement, admissions evaluation, decision processes, and enrollment conversion. Ensures transparent and consistent application of admissions standards while strengthening the applicant experience and the quality and diversity of incoming cohorts.
• Registrar, Academic Records, and Academic Operations: Provides executive oversight of registration, class and examination scheduling, academic calendars, transfer-credit processes, grade processing, degree audit, graduation clearance, transcripts, and credential certification. Safeguards the accuracy, security, confidentiality, retention, and authorized use of student academic records.
• Scholarship and Financial Aid Governance: Oversees the equitable, accurate, and timely administration of institutional scholarships and financial-aid programs, including application review, eligibility determination, awarding, communication, record maintenance, reconciliation, appeals, and reporting. Ensures responsible stewardship of funds and compliance with approved criteria, policies, and regulatory requirements.
• Policy, Compliance, Risk, and Quality Assurance: Establishes and reviews policies, procedures, internal controls, service standards, and audit-ready documentation across enrollment functions. Ensures compliance with institutional policy, accreditation expectations, data-protection requirements, applicable regulations, and approved academic and financial-aid rules; identifies risks and directs corrective action.
• Enrollment Systems, Data, Analytics, and Reporting: Sponsors the effective use and continuous improvement of Banner and related admissions, student-records, scholarship, financial-aid, degree-audit, document-management, and reporting systems. Ensures data governance and quality, produces reliable enrollment intelligence, and presents trends, forecasts, outcomes, risks, and recommendations to executive leadership.
• People, Budget, Service, and Institutional Collaboration: Leads, develops, and evaluates managers and staff across the Division; manages budgets, resources, projects, vendors, and operational priorities; and builds a culture of accountability, collaboration, confidentiality, and service excellence. Resolves escalated student and stakeholder matters and represents the Division on institutional committees and with relevant external bodies.

Education

·     Required: Bachelor’s degree in Higher Education Administration, Enrollment Management, Educational Leadership, Business Administration, Public Administration, or a closely related field.

·     Preferred: Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration, Enrollment Management, Educational Leadership, Business Administration, Public Administration, or a related discipline.

·     Advantageous: Doctoral degree in Higher Education, Educational Leadership, or a related discipline.

·    Preferred: Professional certification or advanced training in strategic enrollment management, admissions, registrar operations.

·     Preferred: Relevant professional development in scholarship and financial-aid compliance, data governance and privacy, project management, or change management.

EXPERIENCE

·   Required: Minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience in higher-education enrollment management, admissions, registrar operations, scholarship or financial-aid administration, or a closely related area, including at least five years in a senior leadership role.

·   Required: Demonstrated success leading multidisciplinary teams and integrating enrollment functions, policies, service delivery, budgets, systems, and institutional reporting.

·   Required: Substantial experience with student information systems and enrollment technologies; Ellucian Banner experience is strongly preferred.

·   Preferred: Experience within an accredited university and familiarity with international, regional, and Kuwait higher-education regulatory requirements.

WORKING CONDITIONS

·   Location: Office-based, AUK campus.

·   Hours: Full-time; occasional evening or weekend work may be required during peak admission, registration, examination, and graduation periods.

·   Travel: Occasional local or international travel may be required for recruitment, professional meetings, or institutional representation.