A number of recent changes have been made to the leadership and organisation of our Professional Services.
Following the departure of Mal Allerton, Chief Information Officer and Executive Director of iSolutions at the end of June, Bally Williams and Rob Irving will be assuming joint interim leadership of iSolutions until the current recruitment process for a successor Chief Digital & Information Officer (CDIO) is completed.
Wendy Appleby, Vice-President (Operations) commented: “Mal has led the iSolutions Directorate extremely effectively, developing popular new services such as our TechHubs and working to ensure our core infrastructure is robust. We have now gone live to recruit his successor.”
Following the retirement of Shaun Williams, Executive Director Engagement & Advancement, at the end of June, a number of changes are being made to the current Engagement & Advancement Directorate:
- The current structure of an “umbrella” Directorate of three separate departments will change to a single Communications Directorate, to be led from 2 September by Emily Fingland, our new Executive Director of Communications. From 1 July to 2 September, Allison Stratford will assume temporary leadership of the Directorate.
- ODAR will become a Directorate in its own right from 1 July, led by Executive Director Jo Donahoe, who will report to Kieron Broadhead, Deputy Vice-President (Operations). Jo has also joined the Professional Services Executive Group (PSEG).
- The Arts and Culture teams will from 1 July move from E&A to report to Sue Littlemore, our Director of Civic University, as part of an expanded Civic University department within RIS.
- The Brand Communications team will from I July move from E&A into the Marketing team in Global Recruitment, Admissions and Marketing. This will ensure better alignment and single strategic direction for our marketing and brand development and delivery.
- The Digital UX team has already moved under Kieron Broadhead, who is currently supporting Andrew Atherton on the development of our University-wide Digital Strategy, and he is assessing how best to align the continuing website transformation within the wider Digital Strategy, in partnership with iSolutions, and to meet the evolving needs of the University.
Wendy Appleby commented: “Shaun’s retirement has given us an opportunity to review our structures, as we have done with other areas of Professional Services, and agree a new vision for how we will deliver these crucial areas of activity over the next few years. These changes will build on the successes that we have seen over the past seven years from the Engagement and Advancement Directorate and strengthen the elements that are so vital to our future success.”