Its not Just an Academic Question: Prof Angus Laing LUMS: Inspiring Leadership interview with Jonathan Bowman-Perks

Professor Angus Laing Dean of Lancaster University Management School – inspiring & achieving change in complex collegiate organisations.

Angus has enjoyed a career in senior academic leadership across a number of leading British universities, including Loughborough and Lancaster where he served as business school Dean. The Dean’s role is endlessly fascinating and challenging. While business schools underpin the financial performance of contemporary universities they are frequently regarded as intellectual inferiors by many traditional academic disciplines. In parallel, while universities are lethargic bureaucracies dominated the academic community, the markets facing business schools are multifaceted and dynamic. As a business school Dean, you are endlessly managing such tensions.

Creating an entrepreneurial ethos and building ambitious teams has lain at the very heart of Angus’s leadership across all the business schools where he has worked. Central to this has been articulating a compelling vision for the future of the School which connects the values of the academic community with the evolving market opportunities. He has led major reorganisation projects both as Dean at Loughborough University and as Chair of the Chartered Association of Business Schools which transformed the performance and standing of both organisations. Being a glutton for punishment he is currently attempting the same at Lancaster University with the Work Foundation.

Angus is an experienced academic with a demonstrable track record of success in research, teaching and academic management. Reflecting this experience possesses well developed entrepreneurial, project management and leadership skills. Underpinned by strong pedagogical and methodological expertise, he is committed to the delivery of intellectually robust and practically relevant university education within an environment of ongoing innovation.

Focus of research interest has been on complex services delivered across public and private sectors with a particular focus on the impact of technology on service consumption and delivery. Current interest centred on the marketisation of higher education and organisational responses to changing environment. Engaged in consulting and advisory work with range of universities and business schools.