Kathy Harvey | Saïd Business School

Profile

Kathy Harvey is Associate Dean, MBA and Executive Degrees. In this role she is responsible for the success of the School’s graduate management programmes. She is a Fellow of Keble College.

Kathy is also responsible for articulating and developing the School’s international strategy for its graduate programmes, including developing academic partnerships. She takes a lead role in supporting the professional development of women students at Oxford Saïd. In her teaching role she leads the Entrepreneurship Project for the Executive MBA and teaches crisis and stakeholder management on programmes within the Executive Education portfolio. She is also a member of the Oxford Coaching Community, working with senior executives to achieve their professional goals.

Previously she held the position of Director of Open Programmes. In this role she designed the School’s postgraduate diplomas, developed a number of short finance programmes and launched an innovative, modular, Oxford Transition to Leadership Programme. Before joining Saïd Business School she worked as a journalist and consultant, coaching senior executives and leading the strategic development of executive programmes for managers across the private and public sectors. She began her career working for the BBC as both a producer and reporter for thirteen years. As a political correspondent, she has interviewed many leading political figures including Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown. She has also worked as a freelance producer for Channel 4 TV and has written for the Sunday Times, Financial Times and the Independent.

Engagement

Kathy has extensive experience in coaching and teaching senior executives.

Her experience combined with her previous background in news journalism means she has a deep understanding of the challenges and aspirations of senior managers who return to education to learn from globally renowned researchers and reflect on the issues they face in their own organisations.

As the Director of the Executive MBA at the School, Kathy leads students through their own entrepreneurial projects, and has coached many executives through their own innovation challenges. She is an innovator and entrepreneur herself, having built the school’s open enrolment portfolio from 8 to 18 programmes in less than three years, and has many years experience of running her own media and management training consultancy where she worked with private and public sector clients on projects such as: devising and implementing a communication programme for over 100 analysts at an international investment bank; acting as a consultant to the emerging markets division of an international card payment organisation and devising and leading a three day intensive media skills programme for MBA students at Saïd Business School, Oxford University.

Kathy is also regularly featured in the media and has been referenced in influential publications such as Times Higher Education, The Economist, The Independent, Financial Times and the Times of India.

Teaching

Kathy directs and teaches on the Executive MBA and on a number of other executive programmes at the School.

She has designed a number of programmes for senior managers, including the innovative Oxford Transition to Leadership Programme at the Saïd Business School as well as a series of short finance courses, developed alongside colleagues from the School’s finance faculty. Kathy is also an executive coach and a member of the SBS Oxford Coaching Community. Her teaching interests include entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial teams, crisis and stakeholder management, group dynamics and networks. Kathy also leads the Global Opportunities and Threats module for the Executive MBA.

Kathy’s role, as Executive MBA Director, is to help students learn from both the world-class academic faculty within Saïd Business School and the wider university. Kathy also encourages students to learn from each other and, coupled with encouragement and mentoring, believes in the power of pedagogical techniques, from case study work to group presentations and multi-disciplinary, experiential learning. Kathy’s international teaching experience includes co-directing a programme for EMBA students from the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, and introducing two new international modules to the Executive MBA, in Silicon Valley and Bangalore, India. She was also responsible for an initiative to offer the School’s innovative Private Equity curriculum to executive participants at Ghuanghua School of Management, Peking University.