Recently appointed Regional Manager for Learning Hawke's Bay Wenhua Yang is committed to increasing the region's profile for international students.
Ms Yang accepted the role in November and formally started in mid-January. As part of her role she is promoting Hawke's Bay as an education destination for international markets.
"It was really good timing. Learning Hawke's Bay was looking for a regional manager when I was looking to relocate to Hawke's Bay. I am very happy to have this opportunity to promote the region I love to international students," Ms Yang said.
Currently, Hawke's Bay has 1500 international students from around the world studying each year - about 400 at EIT, 700 in private tertiary institutions and 400 in schools - and it is something which she believes the region has a great potential to build upon.
Each student contributes more than $27,000 a year on average to the economy and they generate in total about $20 million in economic benefits to the region, supporting more than 200 jobs, she added.