My Services
My Services
Paul has benefited from attending many high-quality professional development programmes. He has completed the Experienced Deans’ and New Deans’ Seminar Series, Association to Advance Collegiate School of Business (AACSB), International. He completed the International Deans’ Programme, Association of Business Schools/European Foundation for Management Development, and the Leading Change and Organisational Renewal Programme, Harvard Business School.
In an ever-evolving global higher education ecosystem, leadership demands a strategic approach that balances innovation, growth and resilience. With decades of experience in finance, strategy, and digital transformation across continents, Paul is uniquely positioned to guide higher education institutions through their most pressing challenges. Paul tackles the pressing problems and with his consulting background delivers bespoke solutions that transform potential risks into growth opportunities.
These experiences position him well to understand the complexities of the rapidly changing global higher education marketplace and the value of long-term collaborations. By demystifying the complex internal and external environments, Paul can help you convert your threats into opportunities and weaknesses into strengths.
Paul has been a full Professor for more than two decades
and has combined his academic knowledge with practical experiences, which has taken him worldwide and enables Boards, senior management, managers, workshop and conference participants to benefit from fresh insights into overcoming pain points, organisational trauma, strategy, growth, and people-related bottlenecks.
Paul delivers executive sessions that inspire action. He can tailor each engagement to the audience and situation because of his experiences applying renewal strategies for profits, not-for-profits, the military, and the Government. The mental balancing act executives perform in today’s BINI environment is one of the toughest of all leadership challenges- Paul can assist you on your journey.
His services can help you overcome some of your organisation's chronic challenges. By demystifying the complex internal and external environments, Paul can help you convert your threats into opportunities and weaknesses into strengths.
Book Paul for a conversation.
Paul looks forward to hearing from you. Please click below and complete the brief form of your area of interest. We’ll get back to you soon and explore how we can partner.
Examples of Services
Strategic financial health and resilience assessment
Risk and contingency planning
Strategic revenue diversification and growth
AI and digital powered organisation transformation
Strategic development plans for new growth-orientated ventures
Policy research studies on HE grand challenges
Strategic Financial Health and Resilience Assessment
The problem
Despite the well-documented systemic disruptions facing the sector, there is evidence that universities appear to be solving only part of a much broader problem.
Budget deficits tend to be a symptom of a much broader problem, which may be strategic, tactical, and cultural.
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At its heart, budgets are necessary for control purposes, but investment decisions for university transformation programmes should incorporate value-driven decision-making, not solely from short-term budgetary fixes.
Addressing underlying systemic financial sustainability problems is paramount, and new solutions are required to enhance university resilience.
So, can your institution afford to be left behind?
Solution
In today’s climate, leadership teams need to future-proof their University. Paul’s comprehensive suite of strategic financial advisory services is designed to help Higher Education Institutions leaders navigate these complex issues and emerge stronger.
Key Services include:
Gain a new way of thinking about existing strategy and tactical gaps and identify new ways to take charge of your organisation's destiny.
Conduct in-depth financial health assessments.
Develop long-term financial sustainability strategies.
Implement risk management frameworks.
Design scenario planning and stress testing tools.
Risk and contingency planning
The future isn’t what it used to be!
Let us be honest; sometimes, you feel uncomfortable about the future prospects and its effects on your Institution. It's time to build your organisation into an engine of possibility.
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Risk management is now an essential part of university corporate governance, and can help in the achievement of strategy objectives. However, in the face of Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible (BANI) headwinds impacting Higher Education, the internal and external environment, technology, strategic posture, and scale of operations will dictate the necessary risk and contingency planning approach.
Universities need to possess robust contingency plans that outline responses to sudden enrolment drops, funding cuts, or operational disruptions. In an increasingly volatile higher education landscape,
Key Services Include:
Gain a new way of thinking about the future and how to lead your organisation into becoming an engine of possibilities.
Develop robust contingency plans for scenarios like sudden enrolment drops or funding cuts
Integrate risk management with academic and professional services strategies
Create data-driven "Plan B" strategies to mitigate sector-specific risks
Strategic revenue diversification and growth
Universities are under pressure and face constraints on identifying new sources of revenue generation. Together with the enrolment cliff, and increases in cost structures, which now include NI increases, increases in tuition fees of £250 will be insufficient to plug the gap.
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Problems can relate to lack of bold strategies, misunderstanding core target markets, and flawed analysis in strategy formulation. Such missives tend to be based on faulty assumptions in this BINI world, and traditional planning processes need more serendipitous inspiration to enable the Revenue Revolution to take place.
Key Services Includes:
Gain new ways of tackling the cognitive dilemma of how to diversify and grow reveunues.
Designing new business models to diversify income sources
Creating specialised delivery units that merge existing activities for greater impact
Exploring opportunities in continuing education, online programs, and IP commercialisation•
Al and digital-powered organisation transformation
Today’s HEIs needs to operate with a lower cost base, higher levels of productivity, and greater agility. Building data-driven AI and digital powered, agile organisational models that drive operational efficiency and future-focused transformation is paramount for a sustainable future.
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Unfortunately, organisation transformations projects can suffer from implementation deficit, where expected shifts are intermittent, broken or fail to break the the status quo, causing frustrations, not progress.
Leveraging your AI and digital solutions can help your institutional transformation projects.
But for any living organism , there is a need to understand your corporate DNA.
Key Services Includes:
Develop scalable business models adaptable to evolving educational technologies
Building a new scalable business model that adapts to evolving stakeholders’ needs.
Build cost-effective data-driven, new AI-powered institutional models to enhance efficiency
Streamline administrative processes and improve decision-making
Create new internal innovation hubs for new types of academic centres such as business schools for financial sustainability and stakeholder impact
Strategic development plans for new growth-orientated ventures
Universities can better leverage their intellectual property (IP) to create, develop and deliver innovative and high-quality online degree programmes and executive-type continuing professional education services to help enhance access of their provision.
At the institutional level, external pressures can create a risk-averse culture that drives strategic behaviour. This can lead to a lack of thought and practice diversity, culminating in a paucity of effective strategising within the organisation.
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Paul’s venture strategy methodology offer a blueprint for launching new initiatives, obtaining external funding, and creating a roadmap for sustained impact and competitive advantage. Previous Projects have been UK and international based with focus on specific disciplines, recently on employability and UNSDGs.
More specifically, his approach consists of three elements: culture driven and will improve engaged employees’ opportunity-spotting, collaboration-building, and strategic planning and thinking.
Key Services Includes:
Launch innovative online degree programmes and executive education offerings
Create roadmaps for sustained impact and competitive advantage in new educational markets
Secure external funding and partnerships for strategic initiatives
Leverage institutional IP for new revenue streams and broader educational access
Policy research studies on HE grand challenges
By engaging Paul's advisory services, higher education leaders can gain valuable insights and strategies to navigate strategy and financial challenges, drive innovation, and ensure long-term institutional sustainability in an ever-changing educational landscape.
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The human-environment sustainability relationship plays a crucial role in organisational alignment. However, shattered (and even shaken) business models need new practices, and workforce strategies must be redefined in ways that could not have been predicted pre covid.
Today's environment requires strategic engagement to create adaptive processes in people and organisations. There is a balancing act between people and systems engaged in pressure for change and stability. Such conflict must align with adaptative outcomes at the individual and organisational levels.
Strategic engagement depends on many factors, including overcoming individual and firm proclivity, social capital and structural issues. But the key is the ability to interact with the complex external environment.
Drawing on his deep understanding of sector challenges, Paul Key Services Includes: covers
Improving access to higher education
Enhancing regional productivity through university partnerships
Meeting local skills and talent needs
Increasing institutional efficiency and effectiveness
Raising quality standards across the sector
Follow-up Services for organisations
To assist Universities in maximising the benefits of key messages from his work, Paul offers follow-up programmes for participating Institutions who recognise that the Learning and Development Paradox is real and that generating measurable outcomes is critical in future-proofing the business.
Paul can help with Keynotes, Masterclasses, Workshops, Retreats, Virtual Speaking, and Conferences;
Flexible Delivery Styles
Keynotes – Paul can customise a talk for specific challenges or a particular occasion.
Masterclasses – Paul can provide access to guidance, feedback, and advice, on specific organisational pain points.
Workshops – Paul can customise packages for Boards, investors, customers, teams, and individuals.
Retreats – Paul can provide the environment and space to help leaders make high-quality and sustainable decisions and bring their teams together on the same page.
Virtual Speaking & Speaker Forums – Paul can involve a community of specialist academics and practitioners who can strengthen a key internal message.
Conferences – Paul can provide inspiring and thought-provoking content to energise participants and delegates.
Talk to Paul about your next event, or organisational developmental programme – he looks forward to hearing from you.
Please click below and complete the brief form of your area of interest. He’ll get back to you and explore how he can help.
Suggested next Action
A brief conversation with Paul now will cover further details and give Paul a chance to understand your issues.
Email pap@drpaulphillips.com or complete a few details on the enquiry form. Paul looks forward to hearing from you.
