2023 Excellence in Leadership (Unclassified)

Giancarlo Mariani

Giancarlo Mariani, associate director of Wright State’s University Center for International Education, received a 2023 President’s Award for Excellence in Leadership for his originality, creativity, and enthusiasm for collaboratively developing strategies that have enhanced his unit.

Mariani’s colleagues praise him for his willingness always to bring his team into the discussion, welcoming new ideas, and encouraging his staff to innovate, automate and communicate in new ways.

“He listens to ideas, gives ownership of them if you bring them to him, and helps you think through how to improve the admission process. As a result, countless man and woman hours have been saved, and student satisfaction with the application process has increased exponentially,” said Theresa Roth, international admissions recruiter in the University Center for International Education.

Prioritizing the international admissions team’s relationships with other university units, including all of Wright State’s graduate and undergraduate programs and advisors, Mariani proactively reaches out to discover what it needs and researches the best way to support its enrollment efforts.

During his time with the international admissions team, Mariani has greatly improved processes and communication. This includes leveraging the reporting functions of Salesforce to create real-time dashboards to prioritize the team’s daily work; sending targeted emails; automating the application process; initiating the use of WhatsApp to provide prospective and admitted students with real-time support and answers to their questions via text; and streamlining the agent process, requiring prospective international agents to undergo a rigorous evaluation before being invited to recruit for Wright State.

Mariani also teams with regional partners in India, Nepal and Bangladesh to continuously improve the quality of their recruitment efforts.

“The international landscape is always changing,” said Roth, “and Giancarlo’s dynamic and visionary outside-the-box thinking has led to a completely new international admissions team, one that is accountable, motivated and excited to come in to work every day. Because of his actions, the admissions process is faster, and the user experience is much improved.”