Next Generation Partnerships with Industry and Beyond
Life is often about finding the right opportunities. The opportunity to take a leap, a calculated risk. Often the opportunity to find success. Or an opportunity to help others find success.
People who come to Wentworth Institute of Technology seek opportunities, whether as students or as those working on our students' behalf.
Opportunity, it can be said, brought Aamir Suleman to Wentworth. An accomplished fundraiser with a PhD in Business Management, he and his family left their home in South Africa in 2022 to come to the United States for a primary reason—Suleman was drawn to Wentworth’s mission and believed that he could help make a difference.
Over the past year, Suleman and Vice President for Institutional Advancement and External Relations (IAER) Crate Herbert have reimagined what it means to build partnerships. With a new team in place and goals set, the Office of Advancement, Industry, Foundation, and Government Partnerships (AIGP) has arrived, and with it an original approach to working with donors and helping Wentworth students as much as possible.
Aamir’s Journey
Born and raised in South Africa, Suleman believed from a young age that he could help change the world. He studied political science in university, beginning a long relationship with nonprofits. He earned a postgraduate degree in international relations before obtaining a master’s degree in commerce and a doctorate in philosophy in business management from the University of Johannesburg.
He worked with several political institutions, including the African National Congress, of which Nelson Mandela was once president. And Suleman found himself enjoying the work, but not seeing quick results. He decided to do more in the education realm.
“Through that process I realized that I could change the world through politics, but it’s gonna be much harder,” he said. “And as part of my move into education, I was quite privileged to work for a number of great universities across Africa and worked at the intersection of academia and commercialization.” in a number of different roles.
Suleman started on international partnerships, customizing, designing, and developing corporate education. He built partnerships within industry and government. And later in his career he found himself at Carnegie Mellon University, posted at its Africa campus in Rwanda. “There was a focus on driving inclusive, digital growth across the continent,” he said.
Suleman served as the inaugural director of education networks and knowledge creation, developing a network of universities across sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere to solve problems for African citizens through collaboration and scholarship. The network of universities launched projects related to energy, digital identity, and combating malaria etc. and focused on how a group of core universities could work together for a common cause to progress African development. He published articles, lectured across several universities, and held a number of board, volunteer and advocacy positions.
“As I did my PhD, the fourth industrial revolution was happening, COVID was happening, and there were a lot of questions around the relevance of universities,” Suleman said. “I spent a lot of time looking at ways that we can enhance universities and ensure that they are relevant, which strongly aligns to the roles that I've played and the role that I play at Wentworth.”
Arriving at Wentworth
If politics is often reactionary, it can be said that education is more often proactive. Students are shown different paths they may choose, and they are prepared—in real time—to deal with challenges that could arise on a given path. Suleman firmly believes the education from a university like Wentworth can change the world in the way he thought about as a young man.
“What really resonates with me is the ability to inspire change. I believe through the work that we do, we change lives. We build careers, we develop communities, we advance societies. Ultimately, we provide an open opportunity for others to change the world,” he said.
And though he was finding great success in Africa, he will tell you that it was Wentworth that brought him and his family to the United States.
“I saw such an incredible opportunity through Wentworth. I believe strongly in the hands-on, practical education,” he said. “And what Wentworth brings to the table is the heart of what we do, a wonderful opportunity to both help societies and lift up individuals.”
Building the Team
Since his Wentworth arrival in October 2022, Suleman has quickly built strong relationships within industry and beyond. He has traveled with Herbert, Thompson, and others to numerous national and international locations, building goodwill for the university and cultivating new partnerships.
He is also at the helm of the Office of Advancement, Industry, Foundation, and Government Partnerships, which includes team members Erik Ryan, senior major gifts officer; Xander Bennett, senior associate director of industry engagement; Samantha Lawson, associate director of foundation engagement; Iyanna Williams, major gift officer; and Casey Glynn, manager. Together, the team has secured a number of gifts for Wentworth, and both created and expanded on key partnerships.
Suleman knows that his team—as a unified front working in concert with the rest of IAER—can be more productive and reach areas that past siloed approaches could not. The AIGP key paths to success are:
- Be more data-driven and efficient
- Find new opportunities and partnerships
- Communicate their value effectively
- Work together better and develop their talent
- Become more visible and respected
Suleman has urged his team to adopt an agile mindset to adapt strategies and plans based on changing circumstances and emerging opportunities. And Suleman’s enterprise approach is also novel for this area within Wentworth.
“It's really about identifying and developing a shared vision for partnerships across the university. There have been such incredible successes at Wentworth from an industry and government partnership standpoint. There's such a great wealth of experience, capability, just incredible people across different divisions and an opportunity exists to bring those individuals together,” he said.
Suleman continued, “We’re identifying ways to enhance coordination and collaboration so that we’re really developing partnerships for the benefit of the entire university ecosystem.”
One way to do that is the creation of the Next Generation Partnership Committee, co-chaired by Suleman and Associate Provost for Transformational Learning Susan Duffy. Bringing together representatives from across campus, the group aims to find opportunities to enhance cross-university collaboration leading to mutually beneficial internal and external partnerships. They plan to share partnership stories, hold industry appreciation events, and produce newsletters, among other initiatives.
“[The committee] went back to the drawing board and we identified who's our stakeholders, where are the biggest opportunities, what are the biggest gaps,” he said. “We're using the strategic pillar of Next Generation Partnerships as not only a function of the university, but a competitive advantage of how we would like to do things going forward.”
Another way is the Dean’s Advisory Council, which is a continued effort between the Provost’s Office and IAER to ensure that industry is at the center of each Wentworth school.
Next Steps
Suleman is proud of the ground his team has covered over the last year, launching committees and projects, and building out key processes.
“We have such incredible alumni and other partners out there with wonderful people all invested in the success of our university,” said Suleman. “And it's been a pleasure to work with them and to identify some of those individuals as we build out our partnerships.”
But he believes they are just getting started.
“There's lots of cool things happening at Wentworth and out there in the world,” he said, “and I think that's how we collectively change the world, through partnering effectively to identify ways that we can build and create opportunities to do really special work.”
Learn more about partnership opportunities by visiting wit.edu/industry or by contacting Aamir Suleman at sulemana@wit.edu.