Transcript:

President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ian Greer:

Following an extensive search and recruitment process involving Senate, I am delighted to announce the appointment of the University's first substantive Vice-President and Chief People Officer, Gillian Magee.

Gillian is currently the Director of People at Belfast Metropolitan College, where for the last 11 years she has led the people functions in a wide-ranging role, heavily focused on change management.

Gillian has managed a broad transformation programme across the College, making investments in growth areas such as skills and apprenticeships.

She introduced a new Centre for Excellence to drive through organisational development, and staff engagement, as well as establishing a new EDI framework in Belfast Met.

Gillian devised and was SRO for the Belfast Met People Strategy. One of her first tasks here at Queen’s will be to review and update our People approach alongside the implementation of Strategy 2030.

Gillian brings significant experience of achieving excellent results and I am delighted to welcome her to Queen's and to the University Management Team.

Gillian will take up her role soon and I hope you will join me in wishing her much continued success as we give her a warm welcome to the University.

Finally, I want to record my thanks to John Parr who has now completed his assignment as interim Chief People Officer, and wish him every success in the future.
 

Vice-President and Chief People Officer, Gillian Magee:

I am delighted to be joining Queen’s as the first substantive Chief People Officer at this exciting time for the University.

People are at the heart of Queen’s and all that this great institution does, which is reflected so well in Strategy 2030.

People are key to our success and to realising our ambition to "shape a better world through life-changing education and research".

I look forward to working with the People and Culture team as we move forward with the implementation of Strategy 2030, with a particular focus on the following areas:

Firstly, Culture – continuing the journey of culture change at Queen’s, helping embed the values and behaviours so ably co-created with staff and set out in the Staff Charter, in all that we do – creating a culture that encourages staff to thrive and perform at their best in support of our strategic priorities.

Secondly, Employee Experience – ensuring that we have the best possible employee experience and a platform for staff to be heard, which ultimately will have a positive impact on the Student Experience.

And finally, Building organisational capability – so that we can respond to changing business needs and deliver on our strategic priorities. We will continue to invest in our people, supporting them to thrive as we focus on high performance and development.

I will take up post soon, and in the interim I look forward to meeting with you all and joining a great team.