An interesting year in prospect for the Chartered ABS Professional Managers Committee

DSC_3585The first meeting of the new academic year for the Professional Managers Committee on Friday 13th October was a great opportunity for us to begin to build momentum behind our 2017/18 key projects. Although a busy time in the semester, the committee turned out in force and I was particularly delighted to welcome four new members: Janine Ellis (Alliance Manchester Business School), Ian Hamley (Warwick Business School), Emm Johnston (Queen Mary University of London) and Paul Verrion (Kent Business School).

Having created the professional manager’s development matrix, it is important that, as a community, we maximise its usefulness. So in order to bring it to life, committee members are putting together case studies from their own experience to illustrate how the matrix can work as a development tool for professional managers aspiring to take on more senior roles. So watch this space for living examples as the year progresses. As always, any comments or thoughts on how to improve the matrix are welcomed.

Another of our key projects for the year ahead is to look into developing a mentoring scheme for professional managers. We are keen to hear the views of professional managers on the usefulness of a possible mentoring scheme and any thoughts or suggestions would be gratefully received. Committee members will be happy to discuss in more detail at our conference in December.

In September, one of our committee, Matthew Hisbent, attended the Tertiary Education Management Conference in Melbourne, Australia. We are keen to develop international links to facilitate the sharing of best practice across geographical boundaries and such exposure of our members and their work will enhance our reach. The trip was partly funded by the Association of University Administrators and the Association for Tertiary Education Management in Australia.

Our final project for this year is to consider the feasibility of developing an International Exchange framework to support the mutual benefits accrued for professional managers by undertaking exchange visits. I will post further information in due course.

Preparations for this year’s Professional Managers Annual Conference (PMAC) in Liverpool on 11 and 12 December are well underway. We are very excited about the new format, in which we have invited papers from you (our community) for the breakout sessions. This has generated some excellent presentations which are now incorporated into the conference programme. Another innovative highlight is our poster competition, which I encourage everyone to view and, given there will be an award for the best poster, vote for your favourite.

The conference enables us to showcase the added value that professional managers bring to the work of business schools and we are keen to embrace the unique opportunity created by a conference environment to network with colleagues and to share our experiences. I would like to encourage all professional managers to attend PMAC – full details are available here and we look forward to you joining us then.

 

And finally…

“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want 10 years of prosperity grow trees.
If you want 100 years of prosperity grow people” Chinese Proverb

So lets grow our people…..

All questions, comments, suggestions on any aspect of the committees work gratefully received.

Dr Phillipa Towlson, Chair, Professional Managers Committee