Strategy Associate

Role/Title: Strategy Associate

Location: Delhi/Mumbai

Department: TNE Advisory

About Us

Acumen, established in 2008 under the Sannam S4 Group umbrella, is a premier internationalisation partner for educational institutions worldwide. Originating in India, we have expanded our services across Asia, North America, and beyond, providing comprehensive support to universities and organisations embarking on their global journeys.

Our Mission and Approach

Driven by research and rich data insights, Acumen offers innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs of each partner. Our end-to-end services empower educational institutions to establish and enhance their international presence, ensuring they receive trusted guidance and expertise at every step.

Global Reach and Services

With a strong presence in India, South and Southeast Asia, and North America, Acumen delivers excellence in education consulting, advisory, and implementation. Our services include in-country representation, high school engagement, agent management, enrollment services, and strategic consulting, all designed to help institutions thrive in today's competitive international education landscape.

Our Team and Values

Our diverse team of over 300 professionals, with a 70% female representation, embodies our core values: Collaboration, Agility, Impact, Empowerment, and Integrity. This commitment to diversity and inclusion fosters a dynamic and supportive environment, enabling us to deliver impactful solutions to our partners.

Why Choose Acumen

Our unique understanding of the education sector, combined with a people-first approach and student-focused insights, has made us an invaluable partner for educational institutions globally. We prioritise your needs, offering practitioner-led expertise and end-to-end support without taking commissions or selling services directly to students, ensuring our focus remains solely on enhancing your institution's success.

Partner with Acumen to navigate the complexities of international education and achieve sustainable growth in the global arena.

The Opportunity

We are looking for high-potential early-career professionals to join Acumen’s growing Education Strategy and TNE Advisory practice. This is a consulting-style role for candidates who enjoy research, analysis, problem-solving, structured thinking, and working on complex questions in global education. The role will provide exposure to client-facing strategy projects with international universities and education institutions across multiple geographies.

As part of a lean and fast-growing advisory team, you will work closely with senior leaders and contribute to live consulting engagements, business development efforts, market intelligence, and practice-building initiatives.

This role is especially suited for candidates currently in consulting capability centres, Big 4 consulting teams, research/analytics roles, or strong undergraduate programs who are looking for faster growth, more ownership, and direct exposure to global clients.

Role Summary

The Strategy Associate will support strategy consulting projects across education, internationalisation, and transnational education. The role will involve market research, market potential assessment, competitor and institutional benchmarking, regulatory review, business case support, proposal development, and preparation of client-ready presentations.

You will work on projects such as market entry strategy, global TNE strategy, branch campus and partnership assessments, student demand analysis, education sector research, and feasibility studies. The role requires strong research ability, business acumen, communication skills, and the ability to convert information into clear, actionable insights.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy Research and Analysis

• Conduct secondary research across global education markets, including India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other priority geographies.
• Analyse student demand, institutional supply, competitor activity, regulatory developments, labour market trends, and education sector dynamics.
• Support market potential assessments, market entry studies, and global education strategy projects.
• Develop structured research outputs, market summaries, benchmarking tables, and insight notes.
• Identify key implications from research and translate findings into clear recommendations.

Client Project Delivery

• Support consulting engagements for international universities and education institutions.
• Contribute to problem-solving, work planning, data gathering, analysis, and preparation of client deliverables.
• Build client-ready PowerPoint presentations, research memos, and analytical outputs.
• Participate in client and global team discussions, with opportunities to contribute analysis and present findings.
• Work in a fast-paced environment across multiple projects and geographies.

Business Case and Feasibility Support

• Support business case and feasibility assessments for education market entry, partnerships, TNE models, and institutional expansion.
• Assist with basic financial and commercial analysis where required.
• Work with data from public sources, institutional reports, regulatory documents, market databases, and other secondary sources.
• Convert complex or fragmented information into simple, structured, and decision-useful outputs.

Practice Building and Business Development

• Support proposal development, pitch decks, credentials documents, and thought leadership material
• Track emerging themes in global education, TNE, internationalisation, student mobility, and employability.
• Contribute to internal knowledge assets, market trackers, and reusable consulting tools.
• Work closely with senior team members in a lean, entrepreneurial, and high-growth advisory practice.

Qualifications and Experience

• 0–2 years of professional experience.
• Strong undergraduate degree from a top-tier Indian institution or a reputable international university.
• Candidates from consulting capability centres, especially MBB capability centres, will be strongly preferred.
• Candidates from Big 4 consulting, research, analytics, corporate strategy, business research, or similar roles will also be considered.
• Prior experience in education, international education, or TNE is helpful but not mandatory.
• MBA is not required; strong undergraduate candidates with the right skills and attitudes are encouraged to apply.

Skills and Competencies

• Strong research and analytical ability.
• Ability to structure ambiguous problems and break them into clear workstreams.
• Strong business acumen and comfort with market, sector, and institutional analysis.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to prepare crisp, client-ready PowerPoint presentations.
• Comfort with Excel, including formulas, basic analysis, tables, and pivot tables.
• Ability to work with large amounts of information and identify what matters.
• Professional communication style and responsiveness while working with clients, senior leaders, and global teams.
• Interest in using digital and AI tools to improve research, analysis, and productivity.

Attributes

• Smart: able to learn quickly, analyse logically, and solve problems in a structured way.
• Nice: collaborative, low-ego, respectful, and easy to work with.
• Driven: proactive, reliable, and willing to take ownership.
• Curious about global education, international markets, and strategy.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, high-learning, high-expectation environment.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to producing high-quality work.

Benefits

• Work on live strategy projects with international universities and education institutions.
• Gain exposure to global education markets across India, Southeast Asia, the
• Middle East, and beyond.
• Build consulting skills across research, analysis, storylining, PowerPoint, client communication, and strategy development.
• Work closely with senior leaders in a lean team with a flat hierarchy.
• Get early client-facing exposure and opportunities to contribute directly to high-impact work.
• Be part of a growing advisory practice at the intersection of education, internationalisation, market entry, and global strategy.
• Build a career pathway into strategy consulting, international education, corporate strategy, or business-building roles.