{"id":469,"date":"2020-05-21T15:56:41","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T15:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/?p=469"},"modified":"2024-09-11T15:52:49","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T14:52:49","slug":"with-change-comes-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/2020\/05\/21\/with-change-comes-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"\"With change comes opportunity\""},"content":{"rendered":"

CEO\u00a0<\/span><\/span>and School of Management alumnus\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Alex Burke\u00a0<\/span><\/span>o<\/span><\/span>n<\/span><\/span>\u00a0his globe-trotting career<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and what it\u2019s really like\u00a0<\/span><\/span>to be in one of the most powerful and sought-after roles in business.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike his friends on the Business Administration course, Alex\u00a0wasn\u2019t interested in working for the big banks or consultancies.\u00a0The year\u00a0was 1997 and he decided to apply for a placement within the media industry \u00a0\u2013 faxing his CV and cold-calling companies until he landed an opportunity at MTV<\/em> in London.<\/p>\n

A passion for project management led to several roles within broadcast television, including a stint in South America.\u00a0With the advent of digital television, Alex moved into the technology sector where his creativity and knack for storytelling helped to sell the dream of the next big\u00a0thing.<\/p>\n

Then, 12 years ago, he took on the role of General Manager in a small digital services company called\u00a0Tigerspike<\/em>.\u00a0It was a modest start but six years later he had helped to grow the business from just eight people to 500, with 12 offices around the world.<\/p>\n

Alex was promoted\u00a0to CEO and enjoyed six years\u00a0at the helm\u00a0before leading the sale of\u00a0Tigerspike<\/em>\u00a0to a $20bn US public listed company.\u00a0Now\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0working in Australia as\u00a0CEO of Education Perfect<\/em>,\u00a0a tech company\u00a0focused on improving learning outcomes.<\/p>\n

\"CEO<\/a><\/b>Your career has taken you all over the world. How do the workplace cultures you've experienced compare to the UK?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Australia there seems to be more of a \u2018give it a go\u2019 culture, which helps when you\u2019re working in technology and\u00a0trying to push the boundaries. Sometimes Brits can be a little sceptical.\u00a0I\u2019ve been able to try more things and that\u2019s probably how my career has accelerated. I feel like I\u2019ve still got some of the good rigour and process from the UK, though.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0also\u00a0worked in Singapore for four\u00a0years \u2013\u00a0it\u2019s a very young country, only 55 years old, and they\u2019ve created a very easy destination to move to and work from. I think that\u2019s why\u00a0Bath student placements have been so successful there \u2013 it's a nice, safe environment, which in some ways is how Bath is in the UK.\u00a0It\u2019s Asia for beginners.<\/p>\n

You provided placements for School of Management\u00a0students\u00a0at\u00a0Tigerspike<\/em>. What makes Bath students stand out?<\/b><\/p>\n

The School\u2019s tagline is\u00a0\u2018Think Ambitious\u2019\u00a0and\u00a0that\u2019s what struck me when I started the Business Administration course in\u00a01994. Everyone was a young ambitious entrepreneur really, and I think there\u2019s a good work\u00a0ethic and desire to learn. If you find the right cultural fit for your\u00a0organisation, then a placement student is\u00a0going to provide a lot of value. For me,\u00a0it\u2019s win-win \u2013 it's a great experience for them and likewise, the outputs we got were always\u00a0to\u00a0a good standard. It\u2019s hard to get into university so the calibre of the students is always very high.<\/p>\n

What are some of your memories of being a student at\u00a0<\/b>the University of\u00a0<\/b>Bath?<\/b><\/p>\n

I was born in\u00a0London\u00a0so it was my first move to a new city and I really loved Bath. It\u2019s a\u00a0fantastic place to be a student because the city is easy to walk around and socially jump from pub to pub. I loved the variety of my course, too.\u00a0I completed two six-month placements, which were\u00a0invaluable in those early years when you don\u2019t really know what you want to do so it\u2019s great to gain\u00a0some experience to guide you.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0also\u00a0did an exchange in the final year in\u00a0the University of Texas in Austin. I remember I was\u00a0pretty na\u00efve\u00a0and went to a student sports game expecting it to be like Bath, with a few hundred people watching a game on the fields. It turned out to be a stadium with\u00a0over 90,000 people watching a local college game! It was a great finale to my whole university experience.\u00a0I learned a lot from my course and made some good friends.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been back to campus<\/b>\u00a0in the past few years<\/b>\u00a0to give guest lectures to student<\/b>s. How\u00a0<\/b>has the campus changed?<\/b><\/p>\n

I had over 20 years away from university and then\u00a0received\u00a0an email inviting me to a Singapore\u00a0alumni\u00a0event\u00a0and\u00a0I\u2019ve been back in touch since.\u00a0The campus has totally transformed \u2013 there used to be fields near the bus stop and now there are lots more buildings.<\/p>\n

\"new<\/a>
Plans for the new School of Management<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s great to see\u00a0it\u00a0evolve and\u00a0to\u00a0know\u00a0that\u00a0the School of Management is\u00a0still\u00a0in good rankings\u00a0\u2013\u00a0it's a good feeling when\u00a0the\u00a0Uni you picked is still highly rated and reputable\u00a0worldwide.\u00a0I think the new School of Management building<\/a> will\u00a0be\u00a0really important\u00a0for the\u00a0Uni and for the School to have those brand-new facilities \u2013 and right front and\u00a0centre\u00a0as\u00a0you enter the campus. No one will miss it, that\u2019s for sure!<\/p>\n


\nYou\u2019ve been a CEO for 7 years now. What do you love about your job, and\u00a0<\/b>was there anything about the role that you didn\u2019t expect?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s great to be given autonomy and to be able to make a real\u00a0impact on people\u00a0and\u00a0their careers and development. I've always enjoyed\u00a0being across the business, it's\u00a0interesting\u00a0to be around the dynamic\u00a0of\u00a0P&L and making your decisions based on data.<\/p>\n

Some of the things I didn\u2019t\u00a0realise\u00a0about being CEO\u00a0is that\u00a0you\u00a0have to\u00a0repeat your messages many times before\u00a0they\u00a0really sink in with people.\u00a0A\u00a0lot of it is around your own storytelling \u2013 what's going to happen\u00a0long-term\u00a0what are the short-term focus areas \u2013 you really\u00a0have to\u00a0repeat,\u00a0repeat,\u00a0repeat\u00a0to make it work.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0other thing I didn\u2019t\u00a0realise\u00a0before\u00a0is that about 50% of my time\u00a0is\u00a0spent\u00a0talking to the board and\u00a0investors and\u00a0keeping them\u00a0up-to-date. You\u00a0actually\u00a0spend\u00a0a lot of your time managing third parties who have a direct influence on the\u00a0business.<\/p>\n

What advice could you give to recent graduates who want to get ahead,<\/b>\u00a0particularly in the<\/b>\u00a0current<\/b>\u00a0circumstances?<\/b><\/p>\n

Without doubt there will be some long-term ramifications of what\u2019s happening around\u00a0globalisation, consumerisation\u00a0\u2013 all sorts of elements are going to be re-checked.\u00a0What's\u00a0been interesting is it\u2019s challenged a lot of\u00a0organisations\u00a0to think quite differently and with that comes a lot of opportunity, particularly in the digital technology space.\u00a0Due to this disruption some businesses are going to have to change and work through their models \u2013 if you think about logistics and\u00a0retailers that didn\u2019t have an online presence before.<\/p>\n

My advice would be\u00a0to do your\u00a0research and have a think about some of the industries that have been challenged\u00a0that need to grow\u00a0or even new businesses that have sprung out of this situation. With change comes opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CEO\u00a0and School of Management alumnus\u00a0Alex Burke\u00a0on\u00a0his globe-trotting career\u00a0and what it\u2019s really like\u00a0to be in one of the most powerful and sought-after roles in business. Unlike his friends on the Business Administration course, Alex\u00a0wasn\u2019t interested in working for the big banks...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186,180,120],"tags":[5,85,15,76],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-news-and-updates","category-features","category-school-of-management","tag-alumni","tag-business","tag-international-2","tag-school-of-management"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2020\/05\/Alex-Burke-CEO.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}