Career development in universities is increasingly understood as an ecosystem, not a standalone service. Yet many career education and development teams are grappling with restructures, limited resources, and unclear pathways for influence, while trying to embed their work across curriculum and broader student experience.

In this session, Marian Wright will share the story of leading a systemic, whole-school approach to career education in a large education system. She will unpack key lessons about moving from advocacy to strategic systems thinking, influencing leaders, and positioning career education as a shared responsibility that sits at the core of the purpose of education. Participants will then be guided through practical exercises that model how to use simple systems tools to map an institutional career ecosystem and stakeholders, and surface structural barriers. The focus of this session is practical; attendees will leave with an understanding of their own careers ecosystem, and ideas about the leverage points to strengthen their work and increase their impact.

Presenter

Marian Wright

Marian Wright is a strategist and design partner who works with education leaders to create coherent, sustainable approaches to career development and student futures. She supports teams to see what is really getting in the way of their intentions and to redesign the structures and practices that quietly work against them.

Marian founded Coherence Co-Lab after years leading innovation and transformation projects within schools and systems, observing how well-intentioned initiatives can stall amid competing priorities and structural constraints. That experience—across classrooms, leadership teams, and system-level roles—shapes her practice. Rather than diagnosing from the outside, Marian works alongside staff within their own context, applying practical systems-thinking disciplines as tools for leaders and educators navigating real complexity, not as abstract theory.