Success of first Professional Service Leadership Team Conference

The theme of the day was ‘Leading a high performance professional services team’. The event was an overwhelming success, providing managers in professional services with a fantastic opportunity to come together to share and discuss their thoughts on how professional services’ teams can adapt to the challenges the University faces so we can continuously improve the services we provide.

Mike Shore-Nye, our Registrar and Secretary, opened the conference, reflecting on how he has assessed the professional services at Exeter since joining in January. He described the depth of talent and the strength of the teams he had found and confessed that where he has been used to setting the pace at other universities, Exeter has left him running to keep up.

Dr Michael Wykes, Director of Policy, Planning and Business Intelligence, introduced the new Corporate Strategy 2016-2021, ahead of its presentation to Council, with a focus on steady and sustainable progress over the next five years and beyond to enable us to make the exceptional happen.

The group then heard the story of Conrad Humphreys, the Exmouth sailor who led a crew of 18 who had never sailed before to victory on the BT Global Challenge round the world race in 2001. Conrad’s descriptions of how to bring a team together and lead them to high performance even through the worst imaginable storms was both inspiring and relevant.

Afterwards, break-out sessions led by both colleagues and external speakers gave colleagues valuable insights into topics as diverse as matrix management, supporting world-class academics, the new Students’ Guild strategic plan and careers planning to support teams.

Jacqui Marshall, Deputy Registrar and Director of Human Resources said: “The inspiration gained from this event will not stop now, just because the event is over, as in the coming weeks the service directors and managers who attended will be sharing the learning with their teams so everyone can benefit from the knowledge gained on the day. Many of the conference sessions were led by our professional services and academic colleagues and I am very grateful to them for leading such inspirational sessions.”