Staff update

New School Colleagues

A warm ‘virtual’ welcome to the following new colleagues who have joined us recently -

Debbie Corlett – who joined the School on 9 January as the Student Advisor for the Undergraduate Accounting & Finance/Economics team;
Julie Woodhouse - who on 16 January joined the MSc Programme Team as Programme Administrator for the MSc Financial Management programme. Julie will be with the team until September;
Robert Charnock and Michael Lucas, Lecturers in Accounting; Dr Yi Liu, Teaching Fellow in Economics; and Dr Shireen Kanji, Reader in the Department of Organisation - all of whom joined the School in early January;
Simon Jones – who joined the School in February as the new interim Operations Manager;
Andrew Maile – joined the School on 20 February on a fixed-term basis for 12-months as an Academic Support Administrator;
Lisa Doughty –Welfare Officer (covering for maternity until January 2018) as of 13 February;
Constantinos Krypridemos – Welfare Officer (covering for maternity until 4 June) as of first week in March;
Aimee Davis - joined the School’s Welfare Team on 20 March as Student Welfare Administrator;
Tamzin Knox – who joins the Accreditations and Rankings, Quality Assurance and Enhancement Team on 6 March as QA and Timetabling Administrator;
Sara Hadlow - joined the MSc Programmes Team on 13 March as Programme Administrator for MSc Marketing programmes;
Amelia Evans - joined the MSc Programmes Team on 13 March as Programme Administrator for the MSc International Accounting and Finance and MSc Investments programmes (until 31 August);
Stuart Mitchell - joined the City-REDI team in March as Centre Manager, providing maternity cover for Sarah Jeffery;
Charlotte Bagwell – joined the School on 3 April as an Academic Support Administrator on a fixed-term basis for 12-months, and;
Samar Adar and Xiaofei Xing, Lecturers in the Department of Finance, who joined the School in early April.

All Change

Regarding Professional Services colleagues –

Liz McGivern (QA and MIS Officer) returned from maternity leave on 1 March – ‘welcome back’;
Julie Shires, External Relations Administrator in the Careers and Business team, has also recently returned from maternity leave, working on a part-time basis as of 5 April, and;
Erica Henry, Recruitment & Admissions Officer, went on maternity leave in mid-March. Erica has since had twins - Theo and Morgan. All three are doing well.

Regarding recent changes in role, congratulations to the following –

Jenny Brookes, previously a School Hub Assistant, began her new role as External Relations Administrator on 23 January;
Gemma Bradley, also previously a School Hub Assistant, began her new role as PA and Project Support Administrator to both the Director of Education and Operations Manager on 23 January;
Eva-Maria Lenz, who has temporarily provided PA and project support for the Directors of Research and Education over the past months, was successfully appointed to the role of PA and Project Support Administrator for the Deputy Dean/Director of Research and Director of Internationalisation and MBA Programmes; also beginning 23 January;
Karen Henry – having worked in the School on a temporary basis since before Christmas as an Academic Support Administrator, Karen has been successful in obtaining a 12-month fixed-term Academic Support Administrator role as of 20 February;
Tamika Pusey-Squire has been appointed as a Programme Administrator from January until September, having been a temporary member of staff in the School, and;
Zabaida Bi has been appointed as a Programme Administrator on a permanent basis as of 3 April.

Regarding Faculty colleagues –

Ian Thomson is the new Steve Brammer, taking on the mantle of Director of Faculty, as of February;
Hazel Westwood is the Deputy Director of the Undergraduate Business Management Programme suite. Hazel has also taken over from Sarah as Director of the Business Management UG Programmes Singapore, with Cristina Sambrook continuing as Deputy, and;
In Economics, Afrasiab Mirza has taken over from Ying Zhou as Director of the School’s Programmes in Money, Banking & Finance.
Finally, well-done to colleagues who have been promoted following the annual academic promotions exercise; Ferran Vendrell-Herrero and Agnieszka Chidlow have been promoted to Senior Lecturer, and Hisham Farag to Reader.

Pastures New

Good bye and best wishes to a number of colleagues who have either left the School since the Autumn edition of the newsletter, or will leave us before the next edition of the newsletter -

Dr Ying Zhou, Lecturer in Economics and Professor Stephen Tallman, Professor of Strategic Management & International Business, who both left at the end of December;
Deb Long, Academic Support Team Leader, who left the School on 3 February having worked at the University for 28 years;
Ellie Lacey who left us on 26 January having temporarily provided PA support in the School Hub for the previous 17 weeks;
Gary Hilton, Data and Management Information Administrator – who left the School on 17 March to take up a role elsewhere in the University;
Amy Hart, Programme Administrator in the MSc Programme Team – who left the School on 24 February;
Neil Austin, also a Programme Administrator in the MSc Programme Team, who takes up a role elsewhere in the University as of 13 March, and;
Shahena Begum – Programme Administrator in the UG Programme Team, who left the School on 3 March;
Katie Hoare, who has been covering the QA and MIS Officer role and managing the School’s Data Collection Project, leaves the School at the end of April to take up a role elsewhere within the University;
Victor Murinde, Professor of Development Finance, and Iveta Simonyan, Lecturer in Marketing, both of whom left the School on 31 March;
Baljinder Panesar - Marketing Officer (maternity cover), who left us on 7 April for a role elsewhere in the University.
Matt Jameson, Programme Administrator for Exec MBA Programme, who is leaving on 28 April.

GEM Awards

Congratulations to the following School Professional Services colleagues who were nominated for GEM Awards since the previous newsletter:

Sandra McCalla, Gemma Bradley, Andrew Miles, Deb Long, Jenny Brookes, Amandeep Bahia, Michele Donovan, Rachel Davis, Matt Butcher, Eva-Maria Lenz, Ellie Lacey and Laura Harris in recognition of the exceptional contribution they made to ensure the annual highly prestigious Business School Advisory Board was such a success, and;

Sophie Sinclair and Paul Carpenter in recognition of their exceptional contribution in putting together the CoSS Citizens UK newsletter.

Hat’s off in particular to Gemma and Sophie who were the GEM prize drawer winners and recipient of a £25 High Street voucher in December and January respectively.

University House Reception

This is to inform colleagues that University House Reception will close at 5.15PM, rather than 6.15PM, on Fridays as of 17 February onwards.

You will notice a further change on Reception as of early-March. Both Nicola and Paulet will be sporting new attire, complete with embroidered Birmingham Business School and University of Birmingham logo and lettering. This more standardised dress code, which will present a professional image to visitors, students and staff, is in keeping with other front-line locations on Campus, such as Aston Webb Reception.

Data Collection - a thank you

Katie Hoare and Margaret Jelleyman would like to thank all Faculty for their involvement in the recent accreditation data gathering process. It has been an invaluable exercise and has provided excellent results. This is part of a programme of work around the maintenance of data for re-accreditation, and will become an annual activity.

Christmas Jumpers!

It seems a long time ago now as we approach Spring, but a number of colleagues donned their festive jumpers on 16 December for a worthy cause; posing for a photo and raising £84 for Save the Children in the process! Thank you to all who took part and/or donated money.

The event was marked for posterity and tweeted for the world to see!

We Mean Business!

Question: What is the collective noun for a group of pandas?

If your answer is an ‘embarrassment’ you’d have been in good company at the recent Staff Fundraising Week quiz held in Café Aroma, Staff House.

The Business School fielded a team of quiz aficionados, perceptively titled ‘We Mean Business’, of six current and ex-colleagues – Richard Bell, Katherine Butcher, Gary Hilton, Katie Hoare, Peter Miller, and Becky Shales.

The team did themselves and the School proud, coming joint fifth out of twenty teams from across the University. Congratulations!