Dr Christopher Russell

During the five years of my tenure, we have significantly increased our student numbers from around 1500 to 14500. We have grown our postgraduate student numbers in Canterbury, built apprenticeship provision in Medway and developed our collaborative partnerships, from Hong Kong in the east to Madrid in the west, via key locations such as Sri Lanka, Dubai, Cyprus, London, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester. We are now one of very few business schools whose income exceeds £100M. In addition, we have submitted staff to the Research Excellence Framework for the first time and been awarded the Small Business Charter.

Prior to joining Canterbury Christ Church, in February 2018, I was at Cardiff Met for fifteen years, where I rose from being a Lecturer in Information Systems to a Principal Lecturer and Head of Department for Accounting, Economics and Finance. Before that I worked in a variety of roles as a Graduate Trainee at Orange and France Télécom R&D and as a researcher at the University of Oulu in Finland. I studied at the universities of Oxford, Aston, Wales and Roehampton.

Key foci of my professional activity have been the development of students’ employability skills and the internationalisation of higher education. Together with colleagues at partner education institutions and in industry in the UK, Egypt, South Africa, Ukraine and Vietnam these have resulted in a total of £842K of project income. I have also co-authored CCCU’s Framework for Developing Enterprising and Professional Graduates and our International Strategy.

In my 20+ years in higher education, I have taught a variety of modules, at levels 4 to 7, in the fields of Organisational Behaviour, Project Management and Information Systems. My current focus is supervising PhD students in innovation and enterprise, especially digital and global.

My core academic research examines information and communications technologies in atypical professions or contexts, for example, UK-based R&D engineers, at the vanguard of adoption, and Greek monks, at the rear. To do so, I conduct ethnographies and draw upon concepts from critical theory. In collaboration with others, I have also researched adoption amongst tech entrepreneurs in Palestine and Thailand, female refugee entrepreneurs and academics in the UK, hoteliers in Bulgaria and leaders in China, using a variety of approaches. The technologies themselves have varied: WiMAX networks, smartphones, virtual reality, passport/ID card readers, learning and project management systems and multi-sided platforms. More generally, I supervise PhD students in innovation and enterprise, especially digital and global. My current PhD students are listed below:

I am the Kent County Council Governor at The Archbishop’s School in Canterbury and sit on their Finance, Premises, Health and Safety Committee. I am also a Trustee of the Bickersteth Fund. These roles build upon my prior experience serving as an Executive Committee Member of the British Accounting and Finance Association and a Trustee of Oxford Student Services Limited.

Currently I am an External Examiner for the universities of Derby and Plymouth. Previously I have performed the role at the universities of Chester, Cumbria, Kingston, Leeds Trinity, Middlesex, Royal Holloway and Sheffield Hallam. I have also served as an External Panellist for course and partnership approval events at the universities of Bishop Grosseteste, Derby, Kingston, Northampton, Solent, South Wales and Suffolk.

I am a Chartered Manager and Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.