2000-2018: Scaling Up and Experimenting Expanding the Credential Evaluation Enterprise In the year 2000, WES was selected by the provincial government of Ontario, Canada to support credential evaluation for the government itself. This was the start of a new era for WES: for the first time, it would be working outside the US, with Tim Owens providing leadership in Canada. While the other Canadian credential evaluation services operating in Ontario at the time viewed WES as a foreign competitor, the Assistant Deputy Minister at the Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities, Shamira Madhany (who would become the Managing Director of WES in Canada nearly two decades later), was supportive of the WES partnership. This support proved to be critical in helping WES to enter a new country. The terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 prompted another major shift in approach and operations, as WES added additional layers of checks into its credential evaluation process. The changes meant that verification with an individual’s academic institution in their home country sometimes took more time, prolonging the overall length of the process. Despite initially losing some market share to competitors, WES stayed the course with the more reliable approach. Eventually, this enhanced attention to verification gave WES a competitive advantage in terms of the overall rigour of its process, which further deepened trust with stakeholders.
WES staff in the Toronto office, 2014
Over the next decade, WES developed a strong presence in Ontario and strong ties to the government, positioning the organisation for further expansion in Canada. In 2013, WES submitted a successful bid to become one of six preferred credential evaluation providers for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), as IRCC introduced requirements for an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) for skills-based economic immigration applicants to Canada. The IRCC contract represented a turning point not only for WES Canada, but also for the entire organisation. Up to this point, WES had been operating as a smaller non-profit organisation, generating revenues to cover operational expenses. Taking on the IRCC opportunity in Canada led to exponential growth in a short period of time and entailed significant changes to existing systems to deliver at scale. It also created new dynamics for WES to navigate, with so much of its work now oriented around a government contract outside of the US.
Exhibit A: WES Credential Evaluations Business Operations, 1974-2024 1974 WES is founded 20 credential 2001 WES begins authentication (in addition to 2018 347,700 credential evaluations completed 2013 WES becomes 1998 WES launches its Automatic International 2020 450,300 credential evaluations completed
2022 Business transformation & R&D in India begins 431,500 credential
2024 WES celebrates 50 years 473,000 credential
provider of Educational Credential Assessments for government of Canada 70,000 credential
Credential Evaluation System (AICES) 10,000 credential
determination of equivalency) for credentials 40,000 credential
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
1984
2000 Toronto office opens 34,000 credential
2005
2017
2019 7% of documents transmitted digitally 407,900 credential
2021 70% of documents transmitted digitally 485,900 credential
2023 86% of documents transmitted digitally 488,000 credential
4,700 credential evaluations completed
58,600 credential evaluations completed
255,500 credential evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
evaluations completed
4
Powered by FlippingBook