Sonya Singh

So I think as a leader, as a mentor, the team at Navitas has been very critical in our growth. 

 Can you tell us when and how you came to partner with Navitas?  

Well, in 1995 when I started SIEC was the year we actually signed up with Navitas and it was a very young company at that time. And I still remember John Duncan, who has been my mentor and who has been my guide throughout this entire journey, had left Monash University and joined this institute called MIBT. I was horrified and I still remember I asked him, I said, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing and what is MIBT?’ And he explained the concept to me and what this was going to be in the future. So that was my first introduction to the IBTs as they called them.  

 So I signed up with MIBT. Before I knew it, we had SIBT and then we had PIBT and then we had Eynesbury College because they still hadn’t become an IBT. It wasn’t advertised at that time at all and they were still finding their way with the name and how to project this new concept. And yeah, that was my beginning.  

 What is one of your favourite memories from working with Navitas?   

 There are two.  

So, one was when I still remember Tony Cullen had come to India. They had signed up – I forget the name of the cricketer. They had signed up with the cricketer as a brand ambassador and they wanted…So doing India, I think their plans had kind of fallen apart because there was a school that they were supposed to engage with. I remember I got a phone call from John Duncan and he said, ‘look, Tony’s there, the cricketer is there and can you organise a school?’ And within, I think 12 hours, we organised for the session at a school in Delhi and it was one of the top schools.  

 It actually brought back to me the way we would hustle when we were on the road and still finding our company and finding our feet that you had to do things on the run. And I still remember meeting Tony and he wasn’t fazed and he thought that he’d be able to, you know, so that that was one learning experience for us. And, and to be honest, I followed the Navitas success trajectory throughout the years.  

 My second favourite memory was when Bev Hudson moved to Vancouver and I was in Seattle to meet my brother. I drove all the way from Seattle to Vancouver to catch up with her for dinner and to find out about Canada and how she was doing and how she ended up in Canada. And that was the beginning of our story with the Canadian institutions.  

Those two memories actually stick out when I think of Navitas, Tony being in Delhi trying to promote Navitas because they had just changed their brand name. It had become Navitas and they wanted to put it out there. And Bev, when she started North America for Navitas and meeting these two people who kind of being, you know, the shapers of Navitas was really, really wonderful. But these are the two memories that stand out.  

How has partnering with Navitas made an imsopact on your work and the lives of the students you have helped? 

Like I said in the beginning, they were a young company, we were a young company. I still remember the dinner conversations we would have after we’d finished work and the fears and the misgivings all of us had about what we were trying to do. Because the international education industry at that time, it wasn’t an industry at all. It was just a business that was very, very raw, and especially in India. Having those conversations really set a tone for us to showcase that it wasn’t us as agencies only who were feeling the fears and the misgivings, but the institutions who we thought had deep pockets had the same fears and misgivings.  

 From my point of view, when Navitas moved, we moved. So, as and when they started getting partners in Australia and in other countries, we started expanding with them. So it’s had a huge impact on SIEC.  

 I mean, when they moved to North America, Canada, before that we’d not touched Canada. That was a time when we started working with Canadian institutions. And then the discussions on where the student movements were happening and the demand increasing… 

Those discussions I think to have with the right kind of partners become so, so critical when you are at the beginning of your business. I actually credit our expansion…and as a founder, I had to lead by my vision where I wanted to take the company. And for me to have Navitas as a partner gave me a vision of what they were doing and I had to just follow that. That worked for us very, very well. So we also expanded. We expanded within India because of those conversations that we could not be heavily centric in one region and we expanded overseas.  

 So I think as a leader, as a mentor, the team at Navitas has been very critical in our growth and obviously the concept that a single exam cannot determine the success or failure of a student’s life. The concept was very, very powerful at that time and no one had done it before that. Having said that, it became hard for us to, in the beginning, to explain it to the students and the parents. But the students who went through it, and there were thousands of students in the last 30 years, have gone on to do so well. And they have actually realised, and I think, you know, eventually everyone realised how critical it was for an international student to be in a small classroom and then transition to the university. Whereas if a student who wasn’t from a very large city was getting lost in the university structure internationally because they didn’t know how to navigate the university system at all, and the different culture, food, everything, now the world is a different place.  

 But when Navitas started, when I started, there was no Internet, there was no social media. Everything was done manually. So we had to read out brochures to the student. The student, once they landed in Australia or in any other country, saw first-hand what was expected of them. Telephone calls were very, very expensive. You actually had to get on an ISD call and they had to call up. 

So when you think of all that in the background, the concept of having international students in a small classroom along with local students, I think was – in terms of a value proposition and in terms of future success – very, very critical. And thousands and thousands of SIEC students actually benefited from it.  

 And we’re still very proud to be a part of that whole ecosystem that was started by Navitas. When none of this noise existed, it was just people and conversations. You’d sit across a table. You had to talk to people , understand what they would do.  

 And I still remember Rod Jones was sitting at one of these tables and he had this felt pen and a piece of paper. And he was trying to explain the concept of Navitas, that how a student at this point of time who does not have enough marks goes into a foundation, spends extra time and money. And instead of that they go straight into Navitas and they go to secondary uni. And I still have that diagram in my head which he was explaining.  So I mean, you know, there was nothing fancy at that time.  

 What key achievements come to mind during your partnership with Navitas? 

I’ll not talk about achievements in terms of, financial achievements or what we’ve done as a business. I’ll talk about what I learnt from the founding team of Navitas. It was their spirit of generosity. They were a very large-hearted group. So that was number one.  

 They were not afraid to make mistakes and when they made mistakes, they were willing to accept them. And for me, again, like I said, I mean, I was young at that time in 1995, I was much younger. To learn from these people and the humility… despite being this large organisation, having investors behind them. I think over the years, what I realised as a business founder and as an owner was that these were the traits that were required to run a successful company. That you had to be humble, you had to be generous, you had to be willing to listen and admit your mistakes.  

 With that being again, like I said, being the founder, when I was able to incorporate that into my DNA, it became a part of SIEC. To date, I attribute the success of my company to these traits rather than to any huge business plans. And to date, when I attend the Business Partners Conferences, end of year conferences, everywhere, Rod Jones is still there and Tony Cullen is still there. And at the last event that they had, they’d invited John Duncan, who’s retired now. And again, that sets the tone that how you value people, how you value relationships, how humility, no matter how big you become…  

 These are the traits I think for me personally and for my organisation, they were the biggest takeaways.