At Rotterdam School of Management BV, Erasmus University (RSM BV), we empower individuals to excel in an ever-evolving global business environment through our Executive Education, MBA, Online Masters and leadership development programmes. In 2025 we will launch 2 new online master programmes and we are looking for an Associate Director who will be leading these programmes from a business and operational point of view and will manage the programme management team. As these programmes are new, the Associate Director will be a key person in setting up the structure for the online programmes and, in collaboration with the other stakeholders, make sure they can be launched successfully. The Associate Director works closely with the Academic Directors of the Online Masters and shares responsibility for all aspects of programme success. These aspects include student satisfaction, mission alignment (impact), financial performance, and programme reputation.
Job description The Associate Director of Online Masters at RSM BV will perform two key functions. First, the role is to establish, shape, and operate RSM’s new online business as a profitable centre in a successful way – ensuring impact, reputation and financial viability.
Secondly, the role holder will represent the operational interests of RSM in discussions with current and future academic partners involved in online programme delivery. This part of the role focuses on commercial, customer, and operational aspects, ensuring that all operational design and delivery details are agreed upon with partners, and that the university’s resource commitments and cost recovery are clearly understood.
The role will provide the commercial and operational guidance necessary for the EUR faculties to design, launch, and manage the fully online post-experience masters. The successful candidate provides support to achieve commercial objectives, as well as manage the student experience through to successful completion. This includes setting up the team and operating procedures to start the programme successfully – and to take ownership of recruiting the right (amount of) students so we can start effectively.
The ideal candidate brings a commercial perspective to launching the Online Masters - focusing on the right positioning of the programme in the global market, finding commercial opportunities in recruitment for these programmes and exploring commercial spin-offs and spin-outs. This role will also involve overseeing the relationship with the internal and external partners along the value chain, to ensure the delivery of effective services to online students, to ensure the best possible student journey and to promote continuous improvements to the programme, aligned with financial goals of the programmes.
The position will oversee a team that offers services in programme management, commercial operations and student support. They will manage their own profit and loss (P&L) and fully administer the delivery of post-experience online programmes including based on their annual operating plan, which includes a financial budget. The Associate Director works together with other Associate Directors (MBA degrees and Open/Customised Programmes) to create synergies and align operations.
Responsibilities include:
- Partnership management: ensure that RSM BV and its partners meet their contractual obligations regarding commercial operations, academic quality, progression, and student numbers.
- Setting up programme operations in such a way that it is both scalable and can benefit from processes and best practices in other programmes.
- Ensuring that all online programs adhere to RSM’s high-quality standards to maintain parity with on-campus offerings.
- Developing and implementing policies and procedures to ensure that the student experience is equally high-quality in both online and on-campus programs.
- Ensuring sufficient academic and pastoral support staff are in place to meet current and future demands based on student enrolment.
- Providing leadership to foster effective collaboration between professional services departments and academic staff.
- In the start-up phase: supervising commercial operations (marketing and recruitment) ensuring profitability of the programmes through achieving the established enrolment targets.