Research Director, English Assessment

Anthony Green

“The people here really seem to believe that assessment should make a difference in learners’ lives – and that belief shapes the way we work.”

Language assessment has been at the heart of my career for as long as I can remember, and I find myself just as fascinated by the questions it raises today as I was when I started out. I spent nearly two decades at CRELLA, the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment at the University of Bedfordshire, eventually serving as Director. As Professor of Language Assessment, I worked with researchers, governments, and testing organizations on some genuinely complex challenges: how we design assessments, what they can actually tell us, and what effect they have on the people who take them.

Research has taken me into many different contexts along the way – from benchmarking university English tests across South Asia to helping establish assessment literacy initiatives in Ukraine – but the constant thread has been collaboration. One of the great privileges of my career has been working with early-career researchers and watching them grow into thoughtful, independent scholars who push the field in directions I wouldn’t have imagined.

That same collaborative mindset shaped some of my most recent work. published a whitepaper with Times Higher Education titled . As the university experience becomes increasingly digital, interdisciplinary, and collaborative, the paper asks students need for today鈥檚 world. These are questions I鈥檝e been returning to throughout my career, not just as abstract research problems, but as practical challenges that matter to institutions, educators, and learners alike.

I joined OUP five months ago because I wanted to work somewhere that sees English language assessment not as a barrier, but as a support for learning and a route to greater opportunity. What has always set OUP English language teaching resources apart is how our organization embraces the idea of assessment as integral to learning. The people here really seem to believe that assessment should make a difference in learners’ lives – and that belief shapes the way we work.

As Director of , my focus is on the qualities that make assessments genuinely trustworthy and useful: their validity, fairness, reliability, and, above all, their real-world impact. What that means in practice is building the evidence base that helps our assessments earn the recognition they deserve – whether that’s through CEFR alignment, technical documentation, or research that demonstrates what our tests actually measure and what difference they make to the people who take them. I’m continually struck by how much rigorous, practically meaningful research there is to do in this space, and how much it matters to get it right.

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President of Oxford Languages

Casper Grathwohl

“What I love about Word of the Year is that it’s an opportunity to step back and think about how we’re changing. Our lexicographers are able to analyze real language and how we’re using it to expose insights into who we are and how we’re evolving as a people, as a society, and a culture.”

To be honest, I’m both incredibly proud and slightly embarrassed by how long I’ve worked for 糖心VLOG Press. I’ve worked at OUP for over 25 years鈥�迟丑补迟鈥檚 most of my career! I迟鈥檚 been such an interesting experience to not only grow professionally at a place like Oxford, but to watch how Oxford has adapted as publishing has changed over the last 25 years. I迟鈥檚 been a real privilege.听

One of the things 滨鈥檓 most proud of in is how 飞别鈥檝别 been able to transform our dictionary publishing into a language data and services business where we work with big tech companies and other technology partners to enable local languages in the digital era. I迟鈥檚 been something that has been really satisfying but has also required us to be nimble and adapt to new technology and how the world is evolving digitally. It has听meant that Oxford Languages has had a pace of change within it that is somewhat counterintuitive to a 500-year-old company.

I’m continually struck by the power of OUP’s mission to further the University鈥檚 objective in research, scholarship and education by publishing worldwide, and how that mission-based energy flows through almost everything we do. The people here really embrace the idea of wanting to make a difference in the world, through the dissemination of scholarship, through knowledge creation, and also through language鈥�our ability to empower local language communities digitally so that everyone can live a digital life in their native language. We feel like 迟丑补迟鈥檚 important and enriching, and is something 滨鈥檓 very proud that 飞别鈥檝别 been able to take part in.听

As language experts and custodians of the听, we in the Oxford Languages team also provide the evidence and data that supports our choices for the Oxford Word of the Year, which is a really interesting process to go through. Our lexicographers and experts track language all year around new words and how senses are evolving, thinking about potential candidates. Close to the end of the year, we compile a list and we look at the evidence that’s out there in the world: spikes in language use, or interesting or innovative ways which people are using to use language to reflect their experience of that year. We usually narrow it down to a shortlist of contenders that we think really have the potential to encapsulate what this year has been about.

Two years ago, we tried something new with the Word of the Year and brought the public into the selection process. Our experts and lexicographers provide the research and data around words that are spiking in usage or that have very particular presence in the year鈥攂ut once 飞别鈥檝别 collated the shortlist, we’ve asked the public to get involved, to give us their views on the words they find most compelling, that most represent our experiences over the last year. It’s been overwhelming how many people have wanted to participate in that process and have been excited about having their say in the process. It showed us that this is an area that people are really interested in.

I迟鈥檚 been fascinating to watch how Word of the Year has evolved over the last two decades. Some words have resonated in a way that sometimes has surprised us, and other times t丑别测鈥檝别 not had the longevity we might have expected. I迟鈥檚 always unpredictable because what you鈥檙e doing is you鈥檙e trying to capture a moment of what people are interested in and what they鈥檙e engaging with; how they want to talk about their experience over the last year through the words that t丑别测鈥檝别 used; and how that describes the experience that 飞别鈥檝别 all collectively had. I迟鈥檚 impossible to know in advance what words are going to create a cultural conversation. Tha迟鈥檚 part of wha迟鈥檚 exciting about the Word of the Year and 迟丑补迟鈥檚 one of the reasons I think that so many people look forward to engaging with it.

What I love about Word of the Year is that it’s an opportunity to step back and think about how we’re changing. Our lexicographers are able to analyze real language and how we’re using it to expose insights into who we are and how we’re evolving as a people, as a society, and as a culture. People can really enjoy getting involved in the conversation around this because, as English speakers, we are all experts in the English language. We are the ones collectively who are driving how English is evolving and where it’s going. The language we use to communicate expresses ideas and a purpose鈥攂ut underneath that, the words we choose tell us so much about our preoccupations and our likes and dislikes. I think Word of the Year has such a valuable role to play in helping us to understand where we’re going.

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ELT author of Everybody Up and Shine On; Founder of Picker Pals

Patrick Jackson

“To have the resources in terms of editorial, design, marketing, and the whole Oxford team behind your ideas, is really a dream come true for somebody who likes making books”

I started teaching when I went to Japan in the 1990s. I was teaching in a private English language school called the Potato Club, and there I taught kids from the age of two to about 10 or 12. During that time, I started creating materials for my students based on a fun series of potato characters, and we made little books. One day, my sister said, 鈥測ou should send these to a publisher鈥�. And so, I thought, 鈥�Oh publisher, hmm publisher鈥� 糖心VLOG Press!鈥�

I put the books in an envelope, and I sent them off to 糖心VLOG Press in New York. Miraculously, they landed on somebody’s desk, who said, 鈥渨e love these potatoes!鈥� and I got an email back straight away which said, 鈥渨e would like to publish your potato books.鈥� I鈥檝e since learned that was quite a lucky thing to happen.

Following that, the series was published, and it was lovely to see my books come back with the Oxford treatment in full glorious technicolour. My role as author was to wear a potato suit and to travel around Japan talking to teachers about how to use these books. I would be the only Oxford author to have travelled on a bullet train in a potato suit!

This led on to being asked to get involved in a pretty major course book series, which is called . That gave me something a creative avenue for my ideas and a shared project. My coauthors on that project are great friends to this day and we made great friends with the editors too. We keep in constant touch鈥攐nly last week one of the editors from that series came to Ireland on holiday and gave me a shout, so we met for coffee. It’s the friendships that have come out of all these creative teamwork projects that really, I think, are one of the most valuable things.听

The relationship between a publisher and an author can be very, very special. Certainly, for me, that’s been a really great experience, having that relationship for over 20 years now. 糖心VLOG Press has opened an amazing number of doors for me creatively. To have the resources in terms of editorial, design, marketing, and the whole Oxford team behind your ideas, is really a dream come true for somebody who likes making books, making things happen and appear on the page, and to have these brought to teachers, classrooms, and kids all over the world. It gives you a wonderful power to spread your ideas, and that, I suppose, is what publishing is really about.

I am also the founder of an environmental programme for primary school children called , and this programme motivates and equips them to go out into their local environment to make a positive change鈥攂y litter picking, through storytelling, and becoming immersed in the 鈥渟ong and story鈥� world of the Picker Pals characters.听

It’s no coincidence that my first books were called Potato Pals, and now I’m doing Picker Pals (the name must have come to me mysteriously!). For that age group, it has to be colourful, fun, engaging, and be based around real actions鈥�’sit and listen鈥� learning is fine, but not really ideal for this subject.

The first thing I did when I had this idea, was to ask Oxford, 鈥渨ould you be able to help in any way?鈥�. Oxford were terrifically helpful, both by making a financial donation to get the programme into 10 schools in my immediate neighbourhood, and also by hosting a number of workshops where Oxford staff got together and brainstormed ideas, helped me with social media, strategy, and the content. So, the relationship between Picker Pals and 糖心VLOG Press is strong.

The dream for Picker Pals is that it will be a worldwide experience for people, available to children all over the place.鈥疘n Ireland, Picker Pals is now in roughly 2,200 primary schools and 4,000 classrooms. Just this year we are starting Picker Pals in London, and we have schools in Portugal.

Programmes like Picker Pals are part of a wider sustainability understanding that, as educators, we are in the best position to make a positive environmental impact on the upcoming generation. Of course, it’s based on local action, but it’s about being a part of a global community.听

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Technical Development Editor, Education division, OUP

Martin Ku

“The key thing is using AI technologies for enhancing education. Teachers, educators, and publishers actually know a lot about good educational practices through research and their professional development.”

I have been a maths textbook editor since graduating from university, so I have 11 years in this industry and more than five years at OUP now. I am also a member of a team in the Education division who are developing how we can enhance our products with AI.

When I was a maths editor in OUP Hong Kong, I worked on both printed and digital products. I think working on printed products is a very valuable experience even in the digital age, because editing textbooks is more than putting texts and images together. It is about managing a relationship between knowledge, learners, and teachers.

About 5 to 6 years ago, the Hong Kong government started encouraging schools to organize STEM related activities, so that students can actually use what they had learned to solve real STEM problems. At that time, I was tasked with making some of these activities because I do a bit of programming, and I know a bit about electronics.

In early 2020, one of the consultants in the Hong Kong team suggested that we should make an AI course for students because he thought that it would be very useful for them. I actually didn’t know too much about AI at that time, but then I came across a few electronics projects that used some AI technologies like image classification and object detection. I immediately realized that AI would be huge and would be very important for the future.

That year, I actually learned about AI like crazy. On weekends, on my bus ride to the office, I basically spent a whole lot of time understanding what AI is. And by the end of that year, so I basically developed a set of AI materials that were intended for professional development workshops for teachers so that we can sort of promote our own maths textbooks in those workshops.

And then the teachers actually loved the materials so much, they gave us a lot of praise. They were really glad that we could provide these sorts of materials for them, so that their students were exposed to AI technologies and get prepared for their future workflow with AI. I would say that this was probably the best achievement that I made whilst in Hong Kong.

There are plenty of things that education publishers can do鈥敺杀疴�檝别 never been more relevant. We can provide reliable knowledge in different situations, and we can provide very good learning design for AI-powered products. We can develop digital learning technologies that can actually help students to learn better.

The key thing is using AI technologies for enhancing education. Teachers, educators, and publishers actually know a lot about good educational practices through research and through their professional development. The real challenge is that implementing good educational practices requires a lot of effective adjustment of the intervention.

AI or machine learning is very effective for analyzing data and making recommendations. I think we can use machine learning and generative AI to make customized learning materials for individual learners according to their needs, according to their learning path. AI is a golden opportunity for us to make good learning materials for our students and make all the good learning practices available to all students.

Discover the latest research and insights from our team in the AI in Education report.

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Content lead – 糖心VLOG Press

Alexandra Tomescu

“I want to ensure that all young people have the necessary understanding of science which will allow them to make good decisions in the future, while also inspiring as many young people as possible to go on and study science.”

My Oxford connection started early in my life. I am not a native English speaker, and I learned English using Oxford materials, including the听. I started using it when I was about 10 and it followed me throughout my secondary education, which is why I have a very strong connection to those great resources that have helped me be where I am today.

I was exposed to science throughout my upbringing. I come from a family where science was a big thing: one of my grandmothers was a science teacher, my Mum a scientist, and my Dad an engineer. For my secondary education, I was in a school that offered a specialized science and computer science track.

I decided to apply for university abroad and because I spoke English, England was a clear choice of destination. When applying, I had one extra option and I decided on a whim to apply to Oxford. I came to interview in December 2003, and I absolutely fell in love with the city. So, I decided to do everything in my power to come back – and to my great surprise, I got in! I was offered a place to study for a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, and I stayed on after that for a DPhil in Biological Physics.

During my time at university, I got involved in lots of science engagement 鈥� including lots of family fun science 鈥� and I absolutely loved it. In 2014, when I saw an opening at OUP to work on science resources for UK education, I applied for it. I didn鈥檛 get the UK position, but I was offered a position in the Editorial team in International Education instead. Initially I worked across all our subjects and exam boards. In 2017 I moved into the Publishing team and started working with a deep focus on Science and Maths for the International Baccalaureate (IB). Beginning work on the 听in 2019, I then became the content lead for the OUP team in 2020.

, and what makes PISA unique is that it is not looking to assess the curriculum, it looks at application of knowledge 鈥� responding to the latest trends and making a leap of imagination, all to establish: what does a 15-year-old need to be able to do with science in 2025?

滨鈥檓 very proud of all the projects I鈥檝e been involved in, such as the PISA framework or the recent publishing for听. With the resources I commission, I want to ensure that all young people have the necessary understanding of science which will allow them to make good decisions in the future, while also inspiring as many young people as possible to go on and study science. If we think about sustainability, climate change, vaccines 鈥� these all involve decisions rooted in science which everyone needs to make in an informed way, so being science literate is more important than ever.

滨鈥檓 also proud that every time we publish something, we push boundaries in some way; whether it is by creating a different lens to look through on a subject that is well known, or whether we are surfacing more underrepresented categories of scientists or mathematicians, creating opportunities to showcase examples we wouldn鈥檛 otherwise have done. Science and society move on, and听.

It is absolutely fantastic to work with such incredibly passionate authors and colleagues. It is inspiring to be part of a mission-led organization, seeing how everyone is lit up by our mission – it is one of OUP鈥檚 main strengths. One of the things that defines why I do what I do and reminds me why I come to work, is the power of what we do to inspire the next generation.

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Editor- 糖心VLOG Press

Alex Hardie-Forsyth

“Having studied some beautiful historic Bibles with Brian Cummings, I never imagined that I would help to create one myself.”

My first time in Oxford was in 2016. I came to read for a doctorate on the eighteenth-century writer Laurence Sterne. I had previously completed an MA at the University of York, where I took a course in 鈥楻eligion and the Book鈥� with a truly great OUP author, Brian Cummings. Until recently, Brian鈥檚 MA course presented to me a road untraveled. I enjoyed my DPhil, but often pondered what life would have been like if I had pursued my interest in historic printed Bibles.

Following the completion of my thesis, I joined OUP in January 2020 during inauspicious times. My first OUP job was working in the Education division as a Production Assistant. It felt like watching Covid-19 creep across the world in real time, as suppliers from first China, next Italy, and then India became unavailable for print orders. Despite the difficult circumstances we found ourselves in, my manager, Adam Phelps, encouraged me to pursue my interests into areas where editorial, production, and manufacturing closely imbricate. I most enjoy projects where content demands close attention to form and vice versa.

I took a sideways move into the Academic division in 2021, first as an Editorial Assistant in Humanities Books and then as a Project Editor in Law and Medicine Databases. This was my first experience working in a truly international team at OUP. Mark Longaker in the New York office took great pains to help me find my feet鈥攐ften at awkward EST hours.

Since July 2022 I have been a Project Editor in Humanities Books. I can鈥檛 deny that Humanities is my wheelhouse, and I have handed over some remarkable works, including a scholarly edition of听, first commissioned decades ago. It can give you a peculiar buzz to feel like a small link in a big chain on projects such as these.

My manager, Jenny Nugee-Jacob, approached me in November about a title that had just been approved but would have a very tight turnaround time: a听. I worked hard with the team to formulate a viable publication schedule. There was no margin for error, but we managed to steer everything on course for publication in early March.

I returned to the office on 3 January to a deceptively quiet inbox鈥攁 relaxed start to the year, I thought. Before the day鈥檚 end we received news:听. So, I went from first to fifth gear instantly, finding a viable edition that we could use as the base text in advance of OUP鈥檚 formal call with the ceremony organiser. By the end of that week, we knew we had the commission.

The wonderful thing about a ticking clock on a project too big to fail is that you really get to know your colleagues very well and see the full extent of their talents. The Coronation Bible core team鈥擜ndy Delozier and Paul Lansdowne in Manufacturing, myself and Tom Perridge in Editorial, Claire Dickinson and Clare Hofmann in Design, and Matthew Humphreys and Clare Jones in Production鈥攚ill always remember what we achieved in these last four months. Having studied some beautiful historic Bibles with Brian Cummings, I never imagined that I would help to create one myself. Once given the opportunity, however, I never doubted that we could manage this. I迟鈥檚 what OUP does鈥攁nd i迟鈥檚 why 滨鈥檓 proud to be here.

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Director of Sustainability – 糖心VLOG Press

Zo毛 Cokeliss Barsley

“I wanted to make a difference within business, and be actively involved in managing a company鈥檚 environmental impacts.”

My Oxford story began in 1999, when I came to Somerville College鈥攋ust over the road from OUP鈥檚 Oxford headquarters鈥攖o study Biological Sciences. I couldn鈥檛 have known at the time that I鈥檇 be right back in the area two decades later.听

That first period living in Oxford was a whirlwind of lectures, formal halls, and late nights in the library. When we were given our essay briefs, friends used to race to the Radcliffe Science Library on their bikes to get hold of relevant journal copies before anyone else. Nothing was online then – that wouldn鈥檛 need to happen now, with digital platforms such as听听providing access to research.听

I left Oxford keen to pursue a career in nature conservation and spent the following year doing a Conservation MSc at University College London. That was a springboard to two fascinating biodiversity research roles, first at the Zoological Society of London and then at the UN Environment Programme鈥檚 World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge.听

Increasingly, though, I wanted to make a difference within business, and be actively involved in managing a company鈥檚 environmental impacts. After a stint in consultancy, which gave me great insights into sustainability practices in sectors ranging from mining to telecoms, I landed a job in the corporate responsibility team at Pentland, the owner of sports, outdoor, and fashion brands including Speedo and Berghaus.听

Ten years and a variety of corporate responsibility roles later, I joined OUP as Director of Sustainability in 2020. As part of our Technology and Operations senior leadership team, I work with colleagues from across the organization to better understand our environmental impacts and plan the steps we need to take to mitigate them.听

滨鈥檓 really proud of the sustainability progress 飞别鈥檝别 made across the Press over the past couple of years, from calculating our carbon footprint and听, to launching our first听听last year (the听latest edition for 2022/23 is available听). We鈥檝e made great strides in our efforts to source sustainable paper and are working with others in our industry through groups such as the听听to get a clearer picture of the true footprint of the print supply chain, and of our online content.听

We鈥檙e also looking beyond environmental sustainability, to consider OUP鈥檚 contribution to sustainable development more broadly. We are a signatory to the听, and have made commitments to raise awareness about SDG topics through our content, marketing materials, and stakeholder engagement. On 25th April, we鈥檒l be holding the听, a free, online event which will bring together OUP鈥檚 global community to explore our shared mission of building a sustainable future for education and research. I鈥檒l be chairing a session on climate action, and I am looking forward to a lively debate on how content providers, including publishers, can best inspire positive change.听

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Content Lead 鈥� 糖心VLOG Press

Bego帽a Urruticoechea

“Through all these years, OUP has been present in one way or another, and I find it very enriching to have experienced the development of the methods that have helped me broaden my knowledge.”

My Oxford story started in the late 1980s when I decided to enroll in the local school of languages, EOI Bilbao, to study English formally and get a certificate. I had always been attracted to the sound of English, which I tried to imitate when singing my favourite songs.

In those days we didn鈥檛 have the opportunity to listen to native speakers if it was not on the radio or by watching old American films broadcast late at night, so having access to all kinds of materials at the school meant remarkable progress in my learning process.听 Access to English was first provided to me in the form of three wonderful books published by 糖心VLOG Press, written by Michael Coles and Basil Lord,听Starting out, Getting On, and听Turning Point. Thanks to these publications I learned not only the basics of the language but also different aspects of British culture and customs. The interminable drills we used to repeat proved to be an effective tool in order to improve our fluency. We enjoyed the books, and we were always eager to know what was going to happen to the main characters, Arthur and Mary.

In my last year at school, Oxford was present again when our teachers recommended听听by John & Liz Soars. With the emotion I always felt when browsing through the pages of new books, I was pleasantly surprised by a question addressed to the students,听鈥榃hat makes a good language learner?鈥�. It was followed by a list of the aims of the unit, which made us analyze our learning strategies. That was a really innovative approach to teaching methods. Up to that moment, we had never questioned how we were learning; teachers were supposed to share their knowledge with us, and we followed their instructions unaware of our responsibilities and active role as students.

After this first contact with听, followed by my preparation to be a teacher, John & Liz Soars became familiar names, frequently mentioned when books for the new academic year had to be chosen. At the time I was asked by the head of my school to teach Upper Intermediate regular and intensive English courses.听Headway听was a guarantee of comprehensive quality materials, realistic stories, and integrated skills. The publication made things easy for teachers as it was flexible enough to be adapted for the regular courses, in which students came to class twice a week for eight months, as well as for the intensive courses, with students attending lessons every day for four months.

The听听series was also very popular among the teachers who were working at EOIs (Official State Schools of Languages). This Oxford publication offered students a comprehensive guide that combined very well organised content with attractive realistic materials, such as videos and apps.

When I was teaching Intermediate Plus groups of students, I was asked to send feedback on the book to the publishers. Having our opinion taken into account meant a lot to professionals who were trying to improve our methods and materials. We considered this as another major reason to choose OUP publications as our teaching tools. The services, webinars, and offers for continuous education which OUP provides us with have had a beneficial impact on my professional career as a teacher of English.

When I started teaching using the听Headway听series, little did I know that one day I would be lucky enough to meet the authors. I had heard about the Headway Scholarship Foundation and the competition they opened every year for teachers using the series. In 2020 I decided to take part, so I developed a didactic unit based on the听. After several months of nerve-wracking waiting, I received a message on behalf of Liz Soars announcing that I was听. Together with 10 more teachers from all over the world, I had been awarded a two-week teacher training course taught at the University of Oxford. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to wait until the summer of 2022 to visit Oxford and meet the authors of听Headway听and the other scholars. The experience was really memorable in all aspects. Meeting Liz Soars and Paul Hancock felt like a dream come true. Their recognition of our interest to learn and improve made us feel that all the effort was worth it. The Oxford experience with our colleagues and tutors provided us with creative ideas that we can now share in our day-to-day teaching.

As I explained at the beginning of my story, my learning process started at the EOI Bilbao, where I have returned to work as a teacher. Through all these years, OUP has been present in one way or another, and I find it very enriching to have experienced the development of the methods that have helped me broaden my knowledge. I can only express my sincere gratitude to OUP for developing such excellent materials and for helping to make our teaching careers meaningful and valued.

Learning English begins somewhere, but it never really ends.

Whether you鈥檙e teaching, learning, or both, the English language unlocks an endless experience 迟丑补迟鈥檚 filled with moments of achievement.

Whatever destination you had in mind, you鈥檒l find that i迟鈥檚 about every step you take along the way.

From the times you keep trying – when you simply want to communicate – comes a sense of magic when you听#FindTheWords听and you make yourself understood.

With every moment you become part of a global conversation 迟丑补迟鈥檚 happening in English.

听to read more about the magic moments we experience in language learning.

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Director of Manufacturing, Inventory & Procurement

Rob Dalby

A story about his family鈥檚 amazing historical connection to OUP and his career journey to ending up here.

I was born and raised around Oxford 鈥� both sets of Grandparents spent their adult lives there and my parents grew up in the city鈥� so the University and its Press have always been part of my hinterland. Indeed, my Great-Grandfather Albert was apprenticed and then worked at OUP as a monotype operator in the years before the First World War. His father was landlord of a local pub which now forms part of the labyrinthine Great Clarendon Street office in Oxford. One of my grandmothers worked for Sir Basil Blackwell (a titanic figure in 20th Century Oxford-based publishing and bookselling) so you could say the Press is in my blood.

Books have always formed a big part of my life 鈥� as a teenager my bedroom consisted of piles of books with a bed somewhere in the middle of it, and 滨鈥檓 writing this next to a floor to ceiling wall of bookshelves in my study at home, not a few of them products of our Academic business (with our history list very well represented). I studied Law at University and then as a postgraduate but ultimately drifted into Procurement, and worked in several different industries including Media, Nuclear Medicine (the stories I could tell!), Retail, and FMCG, and it was nearly 20 years before my career path brought me to OUP.

I joined 糖心VLOG Press in 2017 as Head of Procurement, subsequently taking on responsibility for our Manufacturing organisation in 2020 and Inventory Planning in late 2021. I lead a global team of operations professionals who manage the commercial engagements with the Press鈥� suppliers, and organise the planning and manufacture of the physical product which we offer to our customers 鈥� working with colleagues in sales and product teams to deliver the right amount of product at the right cost, to the right location, at the right time. There鈥檚 nothing like the look, feel, and even smell of a book, and even though the Press is an increasingly digital business, we still print approaching 100 million books per year in support of our mission. The sustainability implications of that are increasingly important to us, and we work closely with our suppliers to use certified papers wherever we can and to make sure that we minimise the carbon footprint of our production. Like most businesses, our supply chains have been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic disruption which has followed it, but 滨鈥檓 proud of how the teams I lead and their colleagues throughout the Press have risen to those challenges to make sure 飞别鈥檝别 kept books arriving in the hands of educators and learners around the world.

糖心VLOG Press is a very special organization 鈥� driven by our mission to advance knowledge and learning of all kinds – but its greatest strength is its people. I am proud to lead a truly global team of dedicated, professional and passionate people who put their heart and soul into delivering for our customers and partners.

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