Employer Advisory Board

CEO, Intralink Group

BA (Dual Honours) Japanese and Geography, 1993

After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a dual honours degree in Japanese and Geography, Greg worked in Japan for 12 years and China for three before locating back to the UK in 2008. 

His first job was on the JET Programme as a Coordinator for International Relations based in Toyama, Japan. In 1996, he joined Intralink, an international business development consultancy, and set up the company’s offices in Tokyo. Since then, he has opened offices in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe and the United States, and now manages a team of 140 employees across 10 countries. 

During his consulting career, Greg has worked with hundreds of startups, SMEs and multi-national corporates, as well as regional and national governments, to accelerate their international growth, promote cross-border collaboration and attract foreign direct investment. He has worked across a range of verticals, including automotive, energy, electronics and healthcare.

Greg is a Japanese speaker and is based at the company’s headquarters in Oxford. 
 

Senior Policy Advisor, Department for Education

BA French Studies, 2017

Upon graduating from the University of Sheffield in 2017, Megan spent 3 years working as a seminar teacher in the French higher education system.

Since joining the Department for Education in 2020, she's held multiple diverse roles including drafting ministerial correspondence for the higher and further education portfolios, working on the department's response to COVID-19, and developing and implementing school food policy.

She's currently working on reforms to the children's social care system in line with the implementation strategy "Stable Homes, Built on Love".

Business Development Director, ITV

BA Philosophy, 1995

After graduating, Jason moved to Manchester where he held a succession of jobs from writing questions for a BBC quiz show to being Assistant Manager of an off license to working at Manchester Evening News.

After travelling around the world for a year, he moved to London and worked at media agencies - from press buying to media planning roles at Carat and PHD - before moving back to Manchester to start a family. He ran a media agency (PHD North) as Managing Director for 5 years, scaling up the business and winning awards for their client work, before moving to ITV in 2011.

As Business Development Director for the past 12 years, Jason has led the growth in revenue of ITV’s commercial teams across the UK outside London in delivering creative business solutions through working closely in partnership with advertisers and their agencies.

Creative (Art Director and Copywriter) at McCann

BA English Literature (with Employment Experience), 2019

As part of her studies Emily completed a placement year as an Assistant Brand Manager at Unilever. Since graduating she's progressed from Junior Copywriter to Junior Creative, to Creative, at advertising agency McCann, a global leader in marketing services. Emily has led and supported marketing campaigns for a number of well known organisations and has been shortlisted for national industry awards including Most Promising Creative Individual.

Public Affairs and Partnerships Lead, Airbnb

BA History and Politics, 2010

Luke graduated in 2010 and undertook a few internships before joining the Civil Service in 2011 (also as an intern) at the Cabinet Office. From there he built his career in a few different fields, mainly focussing on constitutional relations, trade and devolution - taking him to roles at the heart of government and to work on Scottish Independence, Brexit and Covid. From there he left the Civil Service to work on his first passion: travel - joining Airbnb in 2019 and eventually going on to lead their public affairs and partnerships role in Northern Europe.

Associate Producer at Sumo Digital

BA (Hons) English Literature, 2020

During her studies, Ari was selected as a Lloyds Scholar and completed 2 summer internships with Lloyds Banking Group in London. In 2020 at the height of the pandemic Ari secured a marketing role at an SME in Sheffield as part of the RISE scheme to connect Sheffield graduates and local businesses. In 2021, she joined Sumo Digital as a Social Media marketer, working on marketing Sumo and its games to its community on digital platforms. Recently, she pivoted into production and became an Associate Producer on a yet to be announced title.

Operations Transformation Delivery Lead, HSBC

BA Social and Political Studies, 1995

Matt joined HSBC in 1996 and has worked for the same organisation for the last 27 years. He has undertaken a wide range of roles across the UK Branch Network, Commercial Banking, Marketing and Change & Transformation. These roles have been mainly UK based however more recently he has been working on the bank's global operations.

Director of IT Services, University of Sheffield

Executive MBA, 2011; BA History, 1999

Bella has worked at the University of Sheffield as Director of Information Technology since 2019. She has experience of working in IT in the public and private education sector and her previous role was CIO at Sheffield College. Prior to this she held a number of roles developing and delivering digital education and assessment services for Ufi/Learndirect, ranging from product development and system testing, project and programme management and finally leading the strategic change function.

At the University of Sheffield - one of the largest research intensive institutions in the UK - Bella leads the IT Services department of over 300 staff who deliver a huge range of digital products and services that are designed to support learning, teaching, research, innovation and corporate services.

Bella has a people-centric and coaching-led approach to leading her team and is particularly interested how this can be applied with ever evolving approaches to digital delivery.

Advisor for multiple Startups and Accelerator programmes

MBA 2023 Cambridge, MSc 2018 Lund, BA History and Philosophy 2013 Sheffield

Charlie joined the Deloitte graduate programme working mostly with Infrastructure and Capital Projects clients, Health and Social Care and some High Net Worth Entrepreneurial families. After 4 years she left and moved to Sweden to study for a Masters degree. She also started an Internet of Things company helping older people stay safe at home for longer. Charlie was approached by Arup, a large sustainable development and Engineering consultancy to set up an innovation team focussed on developing new propositions to reduce carbon and have a positive impact on sustainability. She built and lead the team for three years, leaving Arup to pursue an MBA and work with Emerging technologies in the climate and sustainability space. Charlie currently advises companies doing anything from carbon capture to rewilding or sustainable fashion, and works with accelerator programmes to support early stage companies to grow.

Self Employed - Strategic Communications

BA Philosophy

In his 20 years since leaving University, Alex has worked in the music industry as an artist and promoter. This led to spending time as a journalist and then in PR. Alex was a founder of the award-winning Sheffield based Tramlines Festival and remains part of the core team to this day as Communications Director. Alex also works extensively in youth music, adult social care and education. This includes being a director and tutor for Musical Works and 13 years with disability arts charity, Under the Stars. He currently lectures on Water Bear Music College's Music Business BA.

Alex also operates a record label and runs strategic communications for 'Tickets for Good', a Sheffield-based startup that gives free tickets to NHS staff, charity workers and people affected by the Cost of Living Crisis. Leading on their PR, user growth and their expansion to the US.

He's passionate about Sheffield music in all forms and the long term cultural importance of the city. Alex is also a member of our School of Music's Board of Collaborators.

Talent Acquisition Coordinator at Industrial Light & Magic (Lucasfilm/The Walt Disney Company)

BA History with Year Abroad, 2020

During Laura's final year at University, she worked within the UoS Careers Service which taught her a lot and made her really in interested in working within early careers and recruitment. Her first job after graduating was as a Resourcing Assistant at a not for profit named Dimensions (which supports people with learning disabilities), where she helped recruit and onboard candidates. At the same time, she began her CIPD Level 3 HR Qualification which she finally completed in June 2022 - this gave Laura a more varied overview of all elements of HR.

In October 2021, Laura moved to ITV and became a Resourcing Coordinator within their Resourcing & Development department, supporting recruitment within data and tech for the upcoming launch of ITVX and their new data strategy, and helping with early careers recruitment and social media. In March 2023, Laura moved to Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) which is a visual effects company that is part of Lucasfilm and the Walt Disney Company. It is most famous for making the Star Wars franchise but also working on over 300 feature films including James Bond, Harry Potter, Mission Impossible and lots of other exciting projects such as Abba Voyage! Laura supports day to day recruitment, including outreach and events, and ILM's early careers schemes.