Business awards for postgraduates

18 July 2011

Excellence Award

Val Davies is this year's recipient of the prestigious North of England Excellence Award presented to the best performing student on the MSc in Management Consultancy programme in the Faculty of Business and Law.

North of England Excellence is a not for profit organisation focused on enabling organisations to achieve their strategic vision by inspiring, supporting and recognising excellence. The award was presented by the Associate Director, Education & Training North of England Excellence, Pete Macartney. "Recognising excellent postgraduate students makes sense for us," he says, "because the winners will hopefully continue this commitment to excellence in their business careers as well."

Val certainly fits the bill as she already manages a successful business consultancy. "It was a surprise to win the award but I am really delighted," she says. "I've already put what I've learnt on the course into practice and for me there has never been a more crucial time for truly effective corporate governance. Despite existing checks and balances we are still not shining a light into the murky corners of some business practices. Through my consultancy I want to do just that."

Pictured: Pete Macartney, Associate Director, Education & Training North of England Excellence,  Nick Hawkins, Head of Executive Programmes in the Liverpool Business School (Nick was the supervisor of Val Davies on her MSc dissertation),  Award recipient Val Davies and Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Brown

CMI Award

Dr Sue Spiers and Andrew Doyle have been awarded the Chartered Management Institute Award, which is presented to the best performing students on LJMU's Executive MBA programme.

"My background is as a scientist and researcher and this course has consolidated and formalised my management skills," says Sue, who is LJMU's Head of Research Programme Development. "As a member of staff it was good to see things from a student perspective and I’ve developed a whole new range of skills applicable to my day job."

Andrew, who decided to undertake the postgraduate course while running his own business, wanted the qualification to enhance his experiences and skills and allow him to branch into consultancy. He completed the course while working full time and starting a family.

"The extra skills I have gained during this course have been great from an operational and marketing perspective.  It has definitely been worth it! I have also now applied to be a sessional Lecturer at LJMU."

Pictured above: Nick Hawkins, Head of Executive Programmes in the Liverpool Business School, CMI representative, Dr Sue Spiers, Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Brown, Andrew Doyle, and CMI representative