29 July 2008 – for immediate release
An academic solution to drive business change Hewlett-Packard managers graduate from Middlesex University on brand new MSc Business Change Michael Hurley and William Mills are senior managers at Hewlett-Packard Limited and Wipro respectively, and now they are also Masters of Science in Business Change. They both graduated from Middlesex University this month and both earned a Distinction. The MSc Business Change course has been developed by Middlesex University in response to a need identified by Hewlett-Packard. Mike and William are the very first Hewlett-Packard managers to have returned to university to take part in this course. (William recently made the move to Wipro from Hewlett-Packard). Four further Hewlett-Packard managers are now undertaking this degree at Middlesex and another 10-12 participants are expected to begin the programme this September. It is all thanks to business consultancy Consalia, and in particular, its Operations Director, Geraldine Locke. Geraldine was aware of the strengths of Middlesex University’s innovative Work Based Learning degrees, where a professionals’ expertise can be accredited as a degree. She also has business links with the Dean of the Middlesex University Business School, Anna Kyprianou, and, of course, Hewlett-Packard. Acting as a very effective ‘go-between’, Geraldine put the University and the well-known IT company together. The two organisations immediately set to work to develop the pioneering MSc Business Change programme. Mike Hurley is Director of Hewlett-Packard Managed Services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He takes up the story: “At HP I manage a large group of people and I needed to encourage them to change the perception of their roles. So we developed this course with Anna [Kyprianou] based on Work Based Learning principles. It has been an enormously powerful process, and groundbreaking at HP. I definitely recommend Middlesex and this process of learning to others. I’m now thinking outside the box, relearning, reanalysing and reflecting every day. Doing the degree taught me to do this. The course required me to write up my business reflections and I did an awful lot of this on aeroplanes when I was travelling for my job!”
William Mills is now the Director of Global Programmes for Wipro, having left HewlettPackard in March of this year. Wipro is a global services provider that delivers technologydriven business solutions. William says that completing the dissertation component of the MSc in January led to a lot of late nights, and was a completely different challenge compared to the business deals he was used to working on. But the friendly competition with Mike drove him to push through. William found the Masters to be “hugely worthwhile” and in the future hopes to see senior managers from Wipro complete the programme and benefit from it in the same way as he has. William says that he now sees himself as an “ambassador for the programme”. Like Mike, William says that he completed the majority of the work for his MSc on planes and trains as he travelled for work and to Middlesex. Dean of the Middlesex University Business School, Anna Kyprianou commented: “We were very pleased to be approached by Consalia and even more pleased to work closely with Hewlett-Packard to find an academic solution to their business need. Middlesex has a great track record of providing the kind of effective higher education that works for both employers and employees. Mike and William have excelled here at Middlesex and we are sure that they are the first of many senior managers from lots of different companies who will benefit from the newly developed MSc Business Change”.
Middlesex University Graduation took place from 7 to 11 July 2008 at the University’s Hendon campus in north London. Over 1,000 students graduated each day from the Schools of Business, Arts and Education, Health and Social Sciences and Computing Science. Ends Notes to Editors:
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For more information please contact Sarah Birdsall in the Middlesex University Press Office on 020 8411 5093 or email s.birdsall@mdx.ac.uk
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The photo is of (l to r) Mike Hurley of Hewlett-Packard and William Mills of Wipro at their Middlesex University Graduation. It is available in alternative formats. Please contact the Middlesex University Press Office as above.
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Based in north London, Middlesex University is one of the UK’s largest universities. Its academic heritage can be traced back to the late nineteenth century origins of its founding colleges. Today Middlesex is regarded as an excellent international university, championing a socially inclusive approach to participation in higher education.