Matt Symonds

Call: +44 1582 790700

Bio

Matt is the co-Founder and CEO of BlueSky Education

Considered one of the foremost experts in business and higher education, Matt has co-founded some of the most respected and successful business school and university initiatives and media companies of the last 25 years.

He launched BlueSky Education after co-founding and directing QS Quacquarelli Symonds (the S of QS), publishers of the QS World University Rankings and organisers of global MBA, Masters and undergraduate events. Responsible for many of the global media partnerships with Bloomberg, CNN and leading national publications across North America, Europe and Asia it was then a natural next step to build an internationally-focused communications and consulting agency dedicated to business and higher education.

Matt has written about education, management, innovation and entrepreneurship for The Economist, BBC, Bloomberg, Forbes, Times of India, South China Morning Post, America Economia and many other publications. In addition to crafting thoughtful and creative media campaigns, he also acts an an advisor to Deans, Vice-Chancellors, Directors and other senior staff. He brings decades of experience to institutional branding, recruitment strategies, rankings performance and academic research.

Matt was an editorial consultant for Times Higher Education for the launch of the THE World University Rankings in 2009, and secured multiple media partnerships and significant global coverage. He subsequently worked with THE and the Wall Street Journal for business school projects, connecting, hosting events with over 250 of the top schools.

For 17 years, Matt co-organised the MaKi Business Media Conferences which bring together the communications teams of the world’s leading business schools and universities to meet with editors and reporters of both tier one global publications - FT, NYTimes, BBC, The Economist, Bloomberg, Forbes, etc - as well as leading media in EMEA, Asia and the Americas. His personal network of journalists is unmatched in the industry.

With John Byrne of Poets & Quants, Matt hosts the CentreCourt MBA and Masters Festivals, and he is also a co-founder and director of Fortuna Admissions, working with former Directors and Associate Deans from 16 of the world’s top 20 business schools to guide thousands of candidates in their graduate application journey.

Matt's book "Getting the MBA Admissions Edge” was sponsored by McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, BCG and Bain and
was the #1 category best-seller for two years.