The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has appointed the Director of Ventures at the Australian Financial Review, Dr Alana Piper, to head a new division focused on the university’s public engagement and relationships with the public and private sectors.
Dr Piper will take up the role of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (External Engagement and Partnerships) in late September, overseeing a new External Engagement and Partnerships Division that will form upon her arrival.
Over the past five years, Dr Piper has built Financial Review Ventures, one of Nine Entertainment’s fastest-growing and most profitable business units, into a hugely successful operation that reinforces the Financial Review’s dominant position in market as well as contributing significantly to the masthead’s bottom line.
The centrepiece of the unit is AFR Live, a national series of events that brings together Australia’s senior leaders and helps set the agenda for industry and policy. Speakers have included sitting prime ministers and treasurers, ASX100 CEOs and chairs, and international luminaries such as Satya Nadella, Niall Fergusson and Mohamed El-Erian.
“With her proven track record in driving external engagement, creating and growing businesses, building transformative partnerships, and managing brand and reputation, we are very much looking forward to Alana taking the lead on a fresh approach to how we outwardly present UTS,” said the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Parfitt.
“Alana has demonstrated outstanding stakeholder management skills, broad expertise across the industry and policy landscape and an outstanding network of relationships across government, media, business and education.”
The External Engagement and Partnerships Division brings together the university’s advancement and alumni, corporate engagement and marketing and communications functions for the first time.
In addition to her commercial background, Dr Piper is well acquainted with the university sector. She was a Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford, where she completed her doctorate in history, and she has consulted with various universities – including Oxford and UTS – in areas of external engagement over the past two decades.
She is also the driving force behind the Financial Review’s annual Higher Education Summit, Higher Education Awards and Best Universities Ranking.
“I am extremely excited to be joining UTS at this pivotal time in its history,” Dr Piper said of her appointment. “The university has such a strong reputation for innovative teaching and research and for being ‘good to do business with’.
“With an amazing physical campus and a ranking among the top 100 universities in the world, UTS is poised for even greater things in the future, and I can’t wait to be a part of that.”
