After a day of insights, connection and collaboration, attendees came together to celebrate each other’s achievements at Flywire’s annual award ceremony, hosted by Flywire’s dynamic duo, Steve Beaumont and Tom Wilmot. Eleven universities and individuals were presented with awards recognising excellence and their successes throughout 2024.
Commenting on the awards, Flywire’s SVP of Education, EMEA Simon Read said, “It’s only right that the unsung heroes of higher education are recognised for their efforts. They make meaningful change for their institutions, often in challenging circumstances, that positively impacts the experience for both students and staff alike, and they deserve appreciation.”
Here are 2025’s deserving winners…
Best Individual Newcomer Award: John Sharp, Royal College of Art
Since joining the Royal College of Art as Deputy Director of Finance, in 2023, John has led the charge to modernise and simplify his institution’s student payment experience.
He has engaged with internal teams, third parties and Flywire with great success, implementing an integration between Flywire and the Thesis student information system - the first in the UK. Not only has this improved the student experience but also, through automating highly manual processes, it has driven staff efficiencies and saved the university a significant sum in merchant fees.
eStore Excellence Award: Queens University Belfast
With a professional focus, and an approach to stakeholder engagement, issues management and problem resolution that is second to none, the team at Queen’s University Belfast are a pleasure to work with. Their second implementation project with Flywire was to replace their eStore with Flywire’s. As well as ensuring PCI DSS compliance, they have delivered a vastly improved user and payer e-commerce experience, and provided store and product owners with the tools and reporting they needed to run a user-friendly and responsive online store. A job well done!
Integration Excellence Award: Lancaster University
From the very beginning of their partnership with Flywire, Lancaster University has fostered an open and transparent relationship, which has in turn delivered positive outcomes.
Under the dynamic leadership of Helen Edge, the University has undertaken transformative initiatives—deepening system integrations, futureproofing their online store and improving debt management—greatly enhancing the student payment experience. With a commitment to best practice, team work and stakeholder alignment, Lancaster University has set the standard for integration excellence.
Integration Excellence Award: City, University of London
Solution-oriented, collaborative and passionate, it is the approach taken by the City, University of London team that really drives successful project outcomes. With clear goals, a defined plan, key stakeholder buy-in, excellent communication, collaboration and of course execution, this year the University successfully integrated Flywire One Door into their student portal, dramatically simplifying the student payment experience and driving internal efficiencies.
Best Practice Leader Award: Haydn Gibbens, University College London
Since joining University College London as Director of Financial Services in 2020, Haydn Gibbins has sought and embraced best practice advice in his mission to modernise and simplify the university’s student payment experience.
Haydn has successfully overhauled the payment journey, integrating it with their Student Information System so that payments are now a seamless part of the enrolment process. By acting on best practice advice Haydn has delivered significant benefits, not only to UCL students, who are able to make payments within a familiar environment, but also staff who have saved countless hours of manual reconciliation and dealing with student enquiries.
Payment Security Award: University of Bristol
With their proactive and strategic approach to payment security, the University of Bristol team has worked tirelessly to implement robust controls and streamline processes to create a secure payment environment. Through a culture of continuous improvement and a steadfast commitment they have successfully and seamlessly integrated payment security into the fabric of daily operations.
Process Innovation Award: Kingston University
Kingston University continues to explore process enhancements for both their students and internal teams. Having migrated to the Unit 4 cloud ERP, which also required the implementation of a new student portal, Kingston University took the opportunity to review and upgrade their payment processes.
In committing to implementing Flywire SFS the team is on track to transform their payment journey offering students streamlined, localised payment options, and transparency in the form of real-time payment tracking, all within the student portal, as well as driving internal process and cost efficiencies.
Process Improvement Award: University of Leeds
The University of Leeds always puts the student at the heart of what they do, and their ambitious, forward-thinking approach to payment processing transformation is no different. In committing to replace all custom integrations with Flywire technology they are focused on making the student payment process seamless and user friendly, ensuring efficiency at every step.
Their commitment to innovation and continuous improvement, along with the determination to adopt best-in-class solutions and impressive cross-campus collaboration truly sets the University of Leeds apart.
Outstanding Contribution Award: Mark Gilbert, Anglia Ruskin University
As Process Improvement Manager, Mark Gilbert has led a number of transformational projects across Finance and Admissions and has eagerly put his university forward to become the first development partner for Flywire's Unit4 SFS integration. But outside of his day job, Mark always goes above and beyond to support both Flywire and the wider higher education sector.
He has been actively involved in the shaping of Flywire’s newer solutions, has participated in Flywire's student research, case studies, and has been only too happy to speak, on stage, about his experiences to help others. An all round 'good egg', we can't think of anyone more deserving of this award.
Payer Journey Innovation Award: Manchester Metropolitan University
A longtime Flywire client, Manchester Metropolitan University has always gone above and beyond to focus on the student payment journey and experience, from both a digital and customer service perspective. To help MMU students and prospective students navigate key payment processes with ease, the university created a series of highly effective video guides about paying using Flywire in collaboration with students past and present.
To maximise their reach and accessibility, the finance team are currently collaborating with colleagues across the university to ensure the videos are widely publicised and readily available.
Trailblazer Award: Scott Lowes, University of Sunderland
A determined individual, with a passion for improvement, Scott Lowes of the University of Sunderland is continuously searching for smart, strategic ways to quickly move the needle and revamp fragmented processes. Last year Scott got the University involved in several Flywire consultancy workshops, research projects including payer focus groups and the income collection benchmarking survey, as well as signposting exercises.
He is always quick to adopt the recommendations that come out of participation, and he has been successful in bringing in key stakeholders across departments, to problem solve the payer experience. With payables now live, and a SITs integration on the horizon, we can’t wait to see what this trailblazer does in the future.