The University of Oxford demonstrated its commitment to management education by agreeing to sponsor one Executive MBA student from among its staff each year. The first University employee to benefit from this scheme was Catherine Quinn,  at the time Director of Research Services at the University of Oxford. Prior to embarking on the Oxford Executive MBA programme, Catherine had fifteen years’ experience in the field of research funding and technology transfer. Originally from the north-west of England, she had lived and worked in the US, Germany and Luxembourg before settling in Oxford.

Once on the programme, Catherine found that she could apply a lot of the techniques and principles she was learning to her work. “Lessons learned in courses such as strategy, operations management and financial management were extremely helpful in my day-to-day working environment,” she says. Part way through the programme, Catherine took on a new role at the University of Oxford’s technology transfer company, Isis Innovation, where she was able to use the knowledge and skills she had gained to set up links with major consulting firms and establish a new strategic direction for the company’s consulting activities.

Since completing the programme, Catherine has gone to work for the Wellcome Trust in London, the UK’s biggest charity, as Head of Grants Management. The organisation’s mission is to support research  to improve human and animal health. The Trust spends  around half a billion pounds per year, mostly in the UK, but increasingly overseas and in particular in developing countries. “Not a week goes by without my applying some of the skills I learned at the Saïd Business School,” Catherine says. “And what could be better than contributing to an organisation which has the independence and financial  strength to  make a real difference to our health?”