Crowlands Primary School
Mr L James
Vice Chair of Leadership & Management Committee, Disciplinary Committee and responsibility for Data Protection
I am an experienced and commercially minded business operations manager, the past 18 years of which have been in Higher Education – University of East London (UEL) and, currently, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU).
I split my time between the main campuses in Cambridge and Chelmsford and my primary focus is the non-teaching aspects of the faculty. I have overall responsibility for all matters concerning student and academic support, finance and marketing/student recruitment. For the 9 years prior to joining ARU, I held a similar position at the University of East London and prior to that, I held senior positions in a City of London software house before starting my own IT recruitment agency in 1991.
In my current position, I am a member of the faculty senior management team reporting to the PVC and Dean of Faculty and responsible for the line management of 40 staff. My areas of responsibility include student support and administration functions, faculty marketing team, resources (financial and estate), commercial operations support (e.g. CPD, KTP) and the central support for the Dean, Academic Heads of Department, Directors of Study, Director of Research and the Faculty Learning and Teaching Director.
During my time at ARU, I have managed the following major projects;
- Project Manager (faculty lead) for the construction of the £45m new Science Centre building in Cambridge including all teaching spaces and research laboratories and a 200-seat ‘superlab’. Building occupied October 2017.
- Project Manager / Business Analyst for university-wide ‘smart-card’ attendance monitoring system including the implementation of a cashless campus system.
- Organised the first (2010) and subsequent university-wide Clearing recruitment campaigns;
- Managed academic / administrative office moves for several Cambridge campus redevelopment projects.
