From Market Silos
to Collaborative Leadership
How regional leaders stopped managing chaos and started learning together.
Every year, INTO University Partnerships helps thousands of international students from around the world achieve their dream of studying in the UK, US and Australia.
INTO works with universities to create specialist programs designed specifically for international students.
Industry: Education - Markets: North Asia, Vietnam - Team: 6 regional leaders
The Challenge
Hiten Amin, VP of East Asia at INTO, took on a complex leadership challenge—overseeing student recruitment teams across North Asia and Vietnam, each operating in highly dynamic, competitive markets.
Each market had its own unique student and recruitment dynamics, making cross-regional alignment difficult. As a result, teams worked in isolation, and Hiten was constantly jumping from one market to another, trying to keep everything on track.
Despite the many status meetings he attended, they didn’t provide the visibility or collaboration needed. Each market remained focused on its own challenges, and valuable insights weren’t being shared across teams.
Introducing a Kanban Mindset for Collaboration
Instead of managing separate, individual meetings with each country head, we introduced a Kanban-like approach to increase visibility, collaboration, and learning across regions.
The Results: A True Leadership Team & Record-Breaking Growth
As transparency improved, something powerful happened: Hiten’s leadership team became more than just a collection of individual market heads—it became a true team. Instead of working in silos, they began collaborating, exchanging ideas, and solving challenges together.
The impact? Hiten’s region achieved the highest growth across all organizational benchmarks and outperformed other regions. It was the strongest year yet for most markets in the region, showcasing the impact of their new collaborative approach.
A New Mindset for Leadership
Looking back, Hiten reflected on how instrumental this agile, Kanban-inspired approach was—not just for improving operations but for transforming how he saw collaboration, transparency, and shared learning.
By visualizing work, aligning leadership, and fostering cross-market knowledge-sharing, his teams were no longer operating in isolation. Instead, they were learning, adapting, and growing—together.
Testimonial
Hiten Amin, VP of East Asia at INTO
Managing recruitment across different markets was always a challenge—each country had its own unique dynamics, and I found myself constantly switching focus from one to another. The endless status meetings didn’t help; I still lacked the transparency I needed.
When we introduced a simple Kanban-inspired system using Trello, everything changed. Instead of working in silos, my leadership team started learning from each other. The weekly meetings became more than just updates—they became opportunities for collaboration and shared problem-solving. The result? Despite an economic downturn, our region achieved the highest growth across all organizational benchmarks.
This shift fundamentally changed how I view leadership, transparency, and collaboration. If you’re looking for a way to bring teams together and create real impact, Chris Kruppa is the person to work with.
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