Nicole Kempton (Imperial College London) on The Power of Global Alumni Ecosystems

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Nicole Kempton to discuss how global alumni networks strengthen career pathways and accelerate innovation through mentorship, industry collaboration, and applied learning

Transcript

Shauna Cox (00:02):

Nicole, welcome to the Illumination Podcast.

Nicole Kempton (00:05):

Thank you for having me.

Shauna Cox (00:07):

Absolutely. So we are here to talk about how a global alumni network can really bridge academia, industry, innovation, which is clearly not a small lift. It's quite a heavy lift. But I want to kick off our conversation and first ask, what role can global alumni networks really play in strengthening that learner to earner pathway?

Nicole Kempton (01:42):

So I think when students matriculate to a university, they will often think about the strength of the particular program that they're joining, or they think about professors that they want to study with, and they think about it in a very short-term, time-bound sense. And what they often don't realize until later is that they're joining this lifelong alumni network, and they're going to be in that network for much longer than they were a student. And there's a ton of research around the power of "weak" ties. And the weak ties was a term that was coined by Stanford Professor Mark Granaveter back in the 70s, and it refers to people who share casual connections, like people who've graduated from the same program or the same university, or people who grew up in the same small town. And it turns out that these weak ties are actually quite strong when it comes to things like networking and building social capital.

(02:44):

And at Imperial, we know that students are getting a world-class education. We were recently ranked number two in the world by the QS university rankings, and our research consistently tops research productivity lists. So we know that students are getting exposed to incredible research, incredible academics, but our alumni are really the proof of concept of an imperial education. And they're the practitioners who are taking that incredible research and academics out and applying it to some of the world's most thorny challenges. And we know that seeing examples of alumni helps students see in an incredibly direct way what they might do after graduation. And I'm not necessarily talking about alums who are CEOs of companies or people who are super public or super senior. It's really people who are at every stage of their career from two years out to 10 years out to 20 years out.

(03:46):

And they can provide so much critical advice on jobs and internship pathways and careers. And there's a lot of research to suggest that once students experience help from an alum, they're much more likely to pay it forward themselves. And so it becomes this kind of virtuous cycle of engagement over time.

Shauna Cox (04:08):

Absolutely. And I want to really dive into the examples that students can see from alumni and connecting it back to the campus, whatever "campus" looks like to your institution. So in what ways can the alumni really accelerate that campus innovation through the research, through the mentorship, and through that experiential learning that you mentioned?

Nicole Kempton (04:28):

Yeah. So this is a really tough question for me to answer because I believe that alumni can play a role in just about every corner of the university. And as I mentioned before, we know that alumni can play an outsized role, particularly when it comes to engaging with students for career, but there are just so many other ways that alumni can kind of speak into the university community and add value to the university community. When I used to work at Duke, the president there referred to the university community as a kind of continually evolving human development cooperative. And I've always really liked that phrase. And now that I'm at Imperial, I see we're really in the midst of a big shift. We really want alumni engagement to go from being a department of the university to a function of the university. And that means empowering everyone across Imperial, academic students, staff to engage alumni in their work and to see alumni as stakeholders who are kind of on equal footing.

(05:33):

And we see some spots where alumni are more actively involved than others and where it makes a huge difference. And one example of that for us is in our entrepreneurship program and Imperial was recently named Times Higher Education's most outstanding entrepreneurial university of 2025. And alumni are deeply embedded in entrepreneurial activity at Imperial from advising startups to investing in them, to providing subject matter expertise. And there's also a number of alumni startups located in our West Tech London incubators and around our white city campus. And they're hosting students in our global hubs as part of our venture track programs and startup challenges. And they're truly part of the ecosystem and they're providing a huge amount of value, but they're also getting a lot out of being part of these programs themselves. And so again, it goes back to that kind of virtuous cycle of engagement.

Shauna Cox (06:37):

And I really, I want to dive even deeper onto this entrepreneurial experience that they're having here because with alumni, they were students once and they went into the workforce. And I think ultimately that is everyone's goal when they go to an institution. So how can a distributed alumni community function as this kind of global talent engine for either current students or recent graduates, just trying to get out there into the real world, as we say?

Nicole Kempton (07:08):

Yeah. I mean, it's so important. And I think global is really in Imperial's DNA. We have 265,000 or so alumni in almost 200 countries, and almost half of our alumni population is outside of the UK. And so global engagement is really important to us. And what happens off campus, away from campus is just as important as what's happening on campus. And as you'd expect, we have active alumni communities in dozens of locations around the world. But I think what makes Imperial's approach truly unique is our global hubs, which have launched as part of the University Science for Humanity strategy. And we have hubs in four locations in San Francisco, California, Acra, Ghana, Bangalore, India, and Singapore. And I think for this one, it makes sense to focus on Imperial Global USA because it's really just a great example of our approach to building global engagement.

(08:18):

And I think fundamentally, Imperial Global USA is a science and technology hub. It's connecting Imperial College London's research with the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem. And really at the end of the day, we're trying to advance solutions for some of the world's biggest challenges. And it's a kind of a unique model among international university initiatives. So a lot of universities might have a hub focused on student recruitment or on traditional fundraising. And our approach includes those things, but it goes far beyond it. And it's really about building meaningful science and technology partnerships that drive impact. And so this opens up some really meaty engagement opportunities for our alumni. And they're opening doors for research partnerships. They're mentoring students who are taking part in programs around the hub. They're helping to secure investment and advise imperial startups. And we know that solving some of these big challenges like climate change and pandemic preparedness and the sustainable energy transition, these are things that require a global approach and they require collaboration and knowledge sharing and large networks of people to make a difference.

(09:50):

And so our hubs are really focused on helping facilitate that collaboration. And it's just really great because it's a way that our alumni can kind of be active, be engaged, and be collaborators in our mission.

Shauna Cox (10:10):

Absolutely. I love the level of detail and involvement that they have because it's really not ... I feel like oftentimes alumni could just be this siloed little group that just donate money to the institution, but here they're really embedded in that ecosystem, which is so great to see. And clearly you guys know what you're doing with all these awards and everything. So first, congrats on all of those. It's fantastic to see. Thank you. And in terms of, since this is kind of ... I want to say obviously not everyone knows it, not everyone knows everything to a T, but you kind of know what you're doing. So I want to ask, where do you see the biggest opportunities for engagement teams, the faculty and the industry to really collaborate and co-create this more workforce aligned learning? And maybe that's dovetailing off of the hubs that you mentioned.

Nicole Kempton (11:07):

Yeah. I mean, it's funny because Imperial's founding motto is to be useful. And 118 years ago it was founded because there was a need to align academics with industry. Basically, the British Empire needed scientists and engineers, and so Imperial was born. And I think for a long time, universities, including Imperial, have kind of shied away from their connection with industry, so as to not seem too vocational in their approach, but we're almost kind of having this full circle moment right now where we are increasingly looking for opportunities. And we see schools like Northeastern University in Boston who, their application numbers have just skyrocketed specifically because of their partnerships with industries and the opportunities for co-curricular learning for students. And at Imperial, we're kind of looking at this in a few different ways. I think we're increasingly championing what we call convergence science. And the basic premise is kind of what I talked about before, which is that big wicked global challenges require global multidisciplinary solutions.

(12:31):

And it's kind of beyond just having academics from one department work with academics from another department. It really is a true partnership between academia, industry, alumni, students, all kind of working together, coming at a problem from a multitude of angles. And so I talked a little bit about our global hubs, but in addition to our global hubs, we've launched what we call the School of Convergence Science, which is kind of the embodiment of this approach. And it's also part of the University's Science for Humanity strategy. And we have four thematic areas within that. We have one around AI, one around sustainability, one around space security and telecoms, and one around health and technology. And the schools provide a kind of natural alignment and they provide students with a way to get involved in research that has a very real world impact, which ultimately helps them get on their career pathways.

(13:36):

And they also provide a really excellent platform for lifelong learning, for our alumni and engagement opportunities for our alumni as well. So it's kind of like bringing all of these different forces to bear and looking at how do we make a difference on some of the things that are most critical right now in the world.

Shauna Cox (13:58):

Absolutely. And I want to give our listeners some tangible takeaways from the work that you guys have done and maybe some lessons learned and stuff like that. So which data and personalization strategies most effectively deepen that alumni affinity and activate them as more of those collaborators and those advocators and brings them into the center of the strategy.

Nicole Kempton (14:24):

Yeah. I mean, this is an area that is definitely still evolving for us. And I think that this is probably one of the most important areas in alumni engagement right now because I think for a long time, universities talked about their alumni using what I would call looking backward language. They're mostly rooted in nostalgia, like, remember when you were a student, where was your favorite place to study, blah, blah, blah. And that's good. We need some of that. And I like looking at pretty shots of campus just like anybody else. But the world has really shifted and loyalty is not as much of a motivator as it once was for people. And we need to really think about how do we meet alumni where they are, regardless of what degree program they graduated from. I always use myself as an example. My undergraduate degree is in Chinese and I now am a director of alumni engagement at a university in the UK.

(15:22):

So what I do for a living is very different from the degree program that I graduated from. And luckily, Duke is my alma mater and they do a great job of finding other ways to get me plugged in. And I am deeply engaged as a volunteer, but I think a lot of universities are really still stuck in that talking to alumni through this kind of very narrow lens of affinity and there's just so much more out there. And so particularly for our more recent grads, those people who are 20 years out and less, we know that they're engaging with lots of causes and they're volunteering their time and yet we see that alumni giving participation and volunteering is in decline at a lot of institutions. And we have to ask the question, why? And I think it's because alumni want to feel like they're contributing to a cause that they care about.

(16:25):

And so the question is for me is how can we be a platform for them to do that? And we need to know what they care about and then provide avenues through which they can help. And I think I talked about our schools of conversion science and one thing that we're really excited about are alumni affinity networks. And I mentioned the four thematic areas in the School of Convergion Science. We've launched alumni networks in AI and sustainability, and we're launching an alumni network for space and an alumni network for health and technology later this year. And we've seen a really positive response to these networks and we're starting to do events aligned with them. We have an event series called Alumni Insights where we bring together an academic leader who chairs a panel of alumni experts. And then we also feature student and alumni startup pitches as part of the event as well.

(17:22):

And we've seen a huge percentage of alumni who've never attended an event before come to these insights events. And so we know we're onto something and this kind of more cross-cutting network that kind of meets alumni in that space that's most relevant to them. And I think that the piece in your question about how to turn alumni into collaborators and advocates is really important because truly involving them and building the future of the institution, not just kind of inviting them to stuff and hope that they come or hope that they give a donation. It's like that kind of treating them like they're a really important stakeholder in the future of the institution. And I go back to the example of the global hubs that we've launched and alumni are absolutely critical co-creators in those. We simply couldn't do it without them. And so they're really helping to build Imperial's presence in these regions and they have a lot of ownership in the success of the university's initiatives there.

(18:22):

And so they're really powerful ambassadors for us and we need to think about how we continue to cultivate that and grow that core of ambassadors and advocates. And I think at the end of the day, our alumni, just they increasingly expect us to know them and to deliver relevant content. And so it's just absolutely crucial that we keep innovating and we keep trying to learn more about what drives our constituents and design programs based on that.

Shauna Cox (18:54):

Well, and I love that you're calling them stakeholders because that's exactly what they are. And I think that puts really this emphasis and importance on who they are. And the getting to know them is also key because just because they're an alumni doesn't mean you just stop. You're putting just as much time and effort into knowing and understanding them as you are a more traditional or an undergrad student, which I think here is key to really putting everyone on the same playing field and seeing them all as the same and not differentiating anyone to make them feel other. So I really love that the work that you guys are doing. Now, those are all the questions I have for you, but is there anything that you want to add in terms of global alumni networks, lessons learned, any advice, anything that I may have missed that you'd like to talk about?

Nicole Kempton (19:41):

No, I mean, I just think it's a really fascinating topic and something that I've shared a couple of examples from Imperial, but we're certainly still in the building and experimenting phase with all of this. And I think that the key transition for us is like, how do we take some of these bright spots? How do we take some of these examples of where we've been able to bring alumni in as true stakeholders and collaborators, and how do we scale that across our alumni population? And I think that's the next big challenge for us and something that I'm kind of dying to figure out. So maybe one of your listeners has some advice for me on how to do that, but it's been really great talking with you today.

Shauna Cox (20:31):

Amazing. Thank you so much, Nicole. And now before I let you go, I have to ask you a bonus question that we are starting on the Illumination Podcast. So if you have a book recommendation, can be higher ed focused or not, what do you recommend someone read?

Nicole Kempton (20:48):

I do have a book recommendation actually, and it's a very, I guess, STEM-related book that I read before the Christmas break, but it's called Everything Is Tubberculosis by John Green. And he kind of talks about the history of tuberculosis and how our approaches to the disease have evolved over time. And just as someone who is working at a STEM institution that's talking about convergent approaches to challenges, I was just fascinated because there's so much to it, like the actual medical research, but more so the societal views of the disease, the policy approaches, all of the different things that kind of feed into this disease, which has really dominated a lot of our modern history in many ways. And so anyway, so it was just a really interesting thought-provoking read and highly recommend it.

Shauna Cox (21:57):

Amazing. Well, again, Nicole, thank you so much for the recommendation, for the insights. It was great chatting with you.

Nicole Kempton (22:04):

Yeah, you too, Shauna. Thanks so much for having me.