I spent the first half of my career in sales management, working everywhere from small design companies to multinationals like Nestle. Over the last nine years, I’ve been in service and operations roles. My previous role before joining the University was Operations Director for fashion brand Lyall & Scott, where I was responsible for the whole supply chain, including production, quality control, warehouse & logistics, service and site management.

I have an obsession with service excellence and creating teams and opportunities to deliver experiences and processes that are ‘the best they can be’. I love the methodology of looking at something that works, and applying this positive learning to a challenging area – focusing on what great looks like makes it easy to clearly see what is needed to achieve something.

I’m brand new to Higher Education and looking forward to supporting my team in delivering a great student and colleague experience. I’ll be following my own usual advice to new starts, which is never think there is a question too stupid to ask, and never be afraid to admit something didn’t work. I believe you need to be open to learn from your mistakes.

Case in point – I worked in a Pet Shop for a while when I was a student. The job itself wasn’t bad, but I turned out to be allergic to animal fur… not the best combo!

Outside of work, I like to read, run or hop on a motorbike to get away from it all – but with six-year-old twins, the word relax doesn’t usually come into my vocabulary…