Sherry’s first visit to Dubai was in 2008, as she started her new role with the University and launched the China Centre. Her latest visit was to join colleagues from around the world for the Middle East Graduation Celebration and the international launch of the University’s first philanthropy campaign, in advance of the launch in China and the first graduation ceremonies to be held there. Sherry is also founder of Mcloud (Manchester Cloud), which is affiliated to Manchester China Forum and the University of Manchester China Centre; Mcloud links Chinese and British government organisations, Sino-UK alumni and artists to build a bilateral people-to-people diplomatic platform.
I'm very privileged to be the Founding Director of the China Centre in Shanghai. My journey to the University started in 2008, when the University was looking for someone to lead on a project to assess whether it could set up a presence in China and wanted to hire a consultant. I already had both UK and Chinese top business schools operational experience, so this was the right time and I took the challenge (‘Challenge Accepted’!).
What makes me feel so proud is that the Centre has grown from a small offshore office presence and developed into one of the most dynamic strategic hubs for The University of Manchester. We grew to take on more responsibilities for the University and for the region and in 2016, we were renamed and relaunched as The University of Manchester China Centre.
Most of our students are Global MBA graduates but we are also introducing more online blended transnational courses from the University, such as the MSc Financial Management. We also introduced the MA Education Leadership in Practice programme and have just celebrated its 5th anniversary in China – the programme is going very well and we have created the Manchester Educators Club in China for students and alumni.
Around 80% of our students are working for multinational, foreign-owned companies mainly because the courses are English language. They hold middle to senior positions in their companies and it’s a very diverse group of people from different industries and different backgrounds. Most of our students are Chinese nationals but around 30% of China Centre students are international and we have a gender balance of around 50:50, which is great.
In 2026, we will host our first formal graduation ceremonies in China, so we were able to learn a lot by attending the Middle East Graduation Celebration - from the fabulous location to the planning process and the staging, everything was fantastic. We're expecting 1,200 guests - graduates and their friends and families - for two graduation sessions in March, held in Shanghai. We're going to have five events in a single day, the two graduation ceremonies plus two receptions and the launch for the volunteering and fundraising campaign, ‘Challenge Accepted’.
The China Centre has over 3,000 alumni but for Manchester full-time alumni in China, it is nearly 60,000. We have a China Alumni Association and then, under that, we have sub-alumni associations in different regions and major cities - Beijing, Shanghai. it's a big community and we have alumni interest groups or industry groups running events, including AI Club, AI Plus Club, Healthcare Club, Kids Club, Finance Club. They're very supportive of the university's activities and we consistently support these alumni association events. Almost every month, we have two to three events to support and these link alumni and give them affiliation to the University - they have a home in China. And we travel a lot within the country.
We have many volunteers for social responsibility activities, such as annual social responsibility forum, ESG alumni company visit, Bright Eye Project with BritCham and Egg Walkathon campaign etc. We have campaigns every year and we have volunteers across the country, who are supporting our alumni events. It's helped to build a very strong reputation for the University, which still remains one of the most attractive universities to Chinese students and parents.
The University pays a lot of attention and importance to global partnerships. In China, we have quite a few strategic institutional level partnerships with China's most prestigious universities, like Tsinghua, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong and Fudan University. The University is running different collaborative programmes with them, and we have dedicated staff in the team to specifically look after certain partnerships.
The University’s new strategy is very inspiring, very positive, very visionary. I think what actually really inspired me is the mention of global collaboration and partnership. At the centre, we are developing ourselves as a lifelong learning platform, an innovation-driven educational platform where we can facilitate new partnerships, joint research opportunities, and see how we can work together with our other colleagues to make impact for both countries. So, we're developing ourselves from a purely programme-delivered support centre to a strategic hub or a bridge between The University of Manchester and China, and China and the UK, in terms of education, culture, business, exchange, and collaboration.
Looking ahead, our priority is to align with University strategies, so we will introduce more programmes from the University to make sure we support and deliver the programmes that fit the Chinese context. So, the programmes that can help train the talents that are needed by the country. Secondly, we want to build our social impact via our partnership with governments, with institutions and with our alumni. Alumni contributions and achievements in their fields are an important part of this.
We have many students from the UAE or Middle East coming to do electives in China and they have had a wonderful experience. We want to work more closely with the Dubai community and we could work together on some joint programmes such as innovation and entrepreneurship. We can also bring Chinese students and entrepreneurs to visit the UAE and look at investment and business opportunities. But also vice versa, we can bring UAE entrepreneurs or students to China, so I think we can do more to link the two alumni communities. The alumni community in the Middle East is large and China is a very large country, so in-person events are difficult but we have the alumni platform, social media, WeChat, WhatsApp, to share information and opportunities. So, students and alumni in both regions could work together on new opportunities. It sounds like an excellent idea.
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