My CEO story: Tzvetelina Ivova, SRT Fairs

“SRT Fairs has grown significantly since its founding. What was the initial spark that made you realize the international student recruitment market needed a new type of player? I always knew the market would need to pivot towards a model like ours; it wasn’t an if but a when. Analysing the international recruitment landscape, it was impossible to ignore how impersonal, mass-scale fairs left students feeling lost and confused in a sea of flashy marketing materials. The cultural and emotional weight of selecting a university is a defining, vulnerable moment for families, and a single, genuine conversation can positively impact a student’s entire future. Recognising that gap was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I saw that the industry was missing an intentional space for these connections, and I decided to launch a boutique format built entirely around the student’s comfort zone, where that human element is protected. How has the company’s core mission evolved from those early days to where you stand today? We have always operated with this exact level of intense focus. From day one, our growth has been entirely sustainable, scaling our model from a highly successful boutique tour framework into a structured global operational ecosystem. Today, our focus remains entirely on empowering international students through human-centred events that connect them with global higher education opportunities, ensuring they can make genuinely informed life decisions. We fulfil this by working in a deep, trusted partnership with schools, universities, and country groups worldwide. What started as an innovative approach to student comfort zones has become a standard for regional access and market execution. We have consciously expanded our footprint by establishing key regional hubs in Bulgaria, Spain, Mexico and now Portugal. This allows us to protect our organisational culture, maintain complete ownership over each event detail, and ensure we deliver sustainable, high conversion outcomes for our university partners while respecting localised goals. Are we entering a more fragmented global recruitment landscape, or a more competitive but consolidated one? The landscape today demands extreme focus. Traditional destinations are experiencing tighter recruitment budgets, resulting in universities becoming more selective about investing their time and capital. Because of this, institutions are consolidating their spend around trusted, professional platform organisers who can guarantee a direct connection to motivated communities. We operate with absolutely no extra fluff, making sure every tour matches the economic reality our clients face: the need for total efficiency and clear, direct results. The student fair market is crowded. When a university or high school sees the SRT Fairs brand, what is the specific promise that sets you apart from competitors? It is a guarantee of a highly curated, premium environment, backed by a truly 360-degree service. We deliver a very spot-on service that is designed to always stay one step ahead of our clients’ needs, putting our clients’ comfort first at every single touchpoint. We want our partners to know that every detail is managed and every student, parent, or counsellor present has been intentionally invited. We focus entirely on creating a smooth, professional, highly predictable space where every interaction has real enrolment potential, allowing representatives to maximise their energy on what matters most. Universities are under increasing pressure to demonstrate ROI on recruitment spend. How should they be measuring success from fairs today? True ROI has to be measured by actual enrolment conversion, not by the sheer volume of random barcode scans collected at a table. The commercial difference between leaving an uncurated public event and leaving an SRT fair comes down to a highly concentrated pipeline of genuinely qualified applicants versus unverified data rows that lead nowhere. In today’s economic climate, looking past superficial data rows is essential. When you look at the math of an enrolment funnel, a highly targeted, counsellor-guided audience consistently converts into a significantly higher number of actual enrolled students than a massive, chaotic public fair. We bring the scale, but because our volume is pre-qualified, the ultimate return on investment is significantly higher. That is how smart institutions are calculating the value of their travel budget today. You’ve often emphasized that SRT Fairs delivers both volume and quality. In an industry where those two goals are often seen as a trade-off, how do you successfully achieve both? The balance comes naturally because of how deeply we invest in our school counselling networks, but it is driven entirely by the culture of our people. Everyone on our team has a similar personal experience that motivates them to pass on their own success and interesting life journeys to young people. That shared passion translates directly into how we execute on the ground. Instead of using broad public advertising, our team works directly with local school coordinators and advisors. They ensure that their student cohorts are genuinely interested in international options before they even step into the fair. Because the audience is self-selected and highly motivated, our university clients get the volume they need to meet their targets, combined with the high quality that leads to actual conversions. We hear a lot about how younger generations interact differently with brands. How is Gen Z changing the dynamic of a traditional student fair, and what are the biggest misconceptions universities still have about how they choose where to study? They are completely driving our event rhythm, and we actively feed off their energy. As proactive listeners on the ground, we don’t just observe how Gen Z operates; we constantly adapt our environment to match the fast-paced speed of engagement they demand from us. There is a common misconception among universities that these younger generations can be fully engaged through standard digital marketing loops alone. In reality, these students are frequently flooded with digital noise and disoriented by the sheer volume of choices available to them. They need highly structured support to navigate this landscape. When they approach a table at our fairs, they have very low tolerance for generic corporate presentations. They are looking for genuine insights into campus culture, real career outcomes, and everyday student life. This is why our model brings together academics, guidance counselors, and insightful cultural proficiency to create something authentic. Our role on the ground is to act as the translator, helping universities pivot their approach so these conversations feel natural, comfortable, and productive. However, technology evolves, we always return to our roots, because nothing replaces the impact of the human touch. SRT Fairs has built deep relationships with high schools and counselors. How critical is that channel compared to agents or digital? Every channel in our industry serves a valid piece of the recruitment landscape. School-based counsellors and independent educational consultants (IECs) provide an incredible level of trust because their foundational focus is entirely on student-centred fit. Because their guidance is tied directly to the student’s long-term academic success, families lean heavily on their advice. Digital tools undeniably support the modern process, but our philosophy has always focused on protecting the human element. We designed our conferences – virtual and in-person – and teaser classes as direct, virtual replicas of large-scale networking and learning activities, utilising technology to facilitate genuine, face-to-face conversations between participants. We always look for ways to connect, we listen and adapt to their specific needs. What are counselors telling you right now that universities aren’t hearing enough of? In my recent conversations, counsellors have been emphasising a massive rise in demand for hands-on, experiential exploration – summer courses, open days, practical workshops. Students want a comprehensive, real-world understanding of a university before they commit to enrolling. At the same time, counsellors are looking for clear answers regarding the future workforce. Students are highly focused on how AI will change their degrees, employability, and professional relevance. Counsellors want to hear how universities are actively adapting their curricula to face these exact challenges. Our collective group format gives institutions a structured, efficient space to address these practical questions simultaneously without disrupting the high school’s academic calendar. How should institutions rethink their engagement with school networks globally? If I were to choose the single most important piece of advice consistently met by my team working globally, it is that institutions really benefit when they move away from viewing school visits as isolated, one-off stops and instead think in terms of long-term regional ecosystems. A major part of that shift means recognising that the orientation process begins earlier than ever. Students in younger year groups need the attention of recruiters too, even if they won’t actually enrol for another two or three years. When universities only focus on final-year students, they miss the opportunity to build early, lasting relationships, or they simply arrive too late to the show. That is why investing in comprehensive, multi-day frameworks, where representatives can network with groups of counsellors during roundtables and then engage directly with families across multiple year groups in a curated environment, is a much more sustainable strategy. It allows universities to maximise their time on the road while nurturing a continuous, multi-year student pipeline. What separates institutions that consistently perform well at your events from those that don’t? It really comes down to an institutional mindset. The universities that absolutely crush it on our tours are the ones that treat the entire experience as a relationship ecosystem rather than a quick transaction. They don’t just sit back behind their tables, passing out brochures. They dive right into the networking sessions with the counsellors, follow up with highly personalised communication the very next day, and take time to speak with the younger students who are starting their journey early on. They view recruitment as an ongoing community investment, and because they put in that genuine effort, they leave our events with a massive, highly loyal enrolment pipeline year after year. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about how international recruitment operates today, what would it be? I would shift the industry away from its costly obsession with raw, uncurated lead volume. Treating international recruitment like a massive numbers game results in wasted marketing capital and operational fatigue for admissions teams. When instead you focus on targeted, counsellor-guided matching, your conversion rates completely transform. It optimises budget efficiency and ensures that recruitment spend is converted into actual enrolments rather than sitting as dead data in a CRM system. Looking ahead, what is the grand vision for SRT Fairs? Where do you go from here? Our focus is entirely on staying relevant, continuing to expand, and growing our footprint exactly where our partners need us most. We move fast, pushing our regional hubs forward and scaling formats because the market is demanding that level of efficiency. But as we scale, our grand vision isn’t just about numbers. What truly sets us apart is our powerful international team. We manage every single detail ourselves because we thrive on that full operational accountability. To sustain that momentum, I am deeply committed to protecting our internal culture. Building a premium platform for universities requires a world-class environment where our own team can thrive. If our people are inspired and supported, they will keep driving the entire industry forward. The post My CEO story: Tzvetelina Ivova, SRT Fairs appeared first on The PIE News .

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