Jargon Runs Both Ways: Bridging the Language Gap Between Marketing, Leadership, and Your Community
Matt Wehner
International school marketing directors are among the most skilled translators in education. They turn “inquiry-based learning” into language a prospective family can feel. They reframe “student agency” for communities where that concept needs cultural context before it can land. The translation work is relentless, often invisible, and rarely acknowledged.
But put that same professional in a room with their Head of School and something shifts. The translation reflex switches off. “Brand awareness gaps” and “funnel optimisation” replace plain conversation. Both sides leave the meeting frustrated. Neither knows why.
This session addresses the communication breakdown that happens inside international schools before anything reaches the outside world. It looks at why brand, marketing, and communications are three distinct disciplines with different purposes, how they depend on each other, and what happens strategically when they blur together into a single “marcoms” function.
Participants will leave with a practical framework for having clearer conversations with leadership, a shared language for distinguishing between brand, marketing, and communications work, and a stronger foundation for making all three more effective.
About Matt Wehner
Matt Wehner’s connection to international schools started as a two-year family adventure and never really ended. Five years at the Western Academy of Beijing, where his wife worked in counseling and his kids grew up in a community that quickly became home, gave him a front-row seat to what makes international schools work, and where they struggle.
Working inside WAB’s in-house team across design, web, photography, and strategy, he saw the same pattern repeatedly. Strong values, clear mission, scattered story. Brand strategy built from old habits and competing voices rather than a shared foundation.
He led the development of WAB’s brand strategy, a process rooted in community listening and empathy that changed more than the visuals. It changed how people talked about the school.
That experience became School ID, built on the idea that every school deserves a story that feels true, usable, and shared by the whole community. School ID works at the intersection of international school insight and professional brand strategy, helping schools find clarity, shape identity, and connect it to community belonging.
Matt is based in Minnesota, USA and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and works with international schools globally.
