Meet David Weston
06 Nov 2024
David Weston is the Faculty’s Head of Communications and Marketing and Deputy Director of Faculty Operations. Here, David tells us about his role and his life outside of the University.
Can you tell me about your role and the teams that you work with?
My remit is really broad. There are multiple sub-teams that sit within Communications and Marketing including Internal Communications (to staff and students), Social Responsibility, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (SREDIA), which also covers environmental sustainability and civic engagement, Digital Marketing who look after our websites as well as our organic social media channels and paid social media campaigns, Research Communications and Student Marketing and Recruitment for Undergraduate, Post Graduate Taught and Post Graduate Research students.
The Research Communications remit includes external comms for the energy, biotechnology and advanced materials beacons as well as our wider portfolio of research activity. As a Faculty we deliver some incredible research in lots of different areas, so there’s a huge amount of work that goes on in that space.
And we don’t work in isolation just within the Faculty. We work collaboratively with the Communications and Marketing teams in the central directorate and the other Faculties on lots of campaigns. We also work closely with Admissions colleagues to ensure that we’re all working to deliver the same student number targets through our marketing and conversion activity and physical events such as open days and offer holder days.
What are your priorities at the moment?
There is a Faculty strategy covering our three core goals; Teaching and Learning, Research and SREDIA. We have been working closely with the Vice Deans to make the final versions of these accessible so that our staff and students are able to understand how we’re all contributing towards these shared aims. Longer term, we’ll be focusing on Manchester 2035 and working out how we can help to deliver the University’s vision for the next decade.
On top of that, the student recruitment cycle is always a priority for my team. After all, without students we don’t have a faculty or a university!
What’s your favourite thing about the role?
The people. I’ve got a great team who I genuinely enjoy working with. Because of the nature of what we do and the fact that it is so varied, there’s never a dull moment.
How long have you worked at the University?
8 years
What roles have you held previously?
I had some interesting roles whilst studying at university including working as a waiter, working in furniture factory and cleaning toilets at Manchester Airport!
After graduation my first job was with a PR and advertising agency in London. I then moved back to Manchester to continue working in public relations, primarily with clients in the public sector. I did a lot of work with the British Council’s Education UK team, which gave me an introduction to international student-facing campaigns. Having had a taste of working with the education sector, I joined UCL as their Senior Press Officer before working my way up to eventually take on the role of Head of Communications there. My most recent role before joining FSE was as Director of Communications for a large NHS Trust in London.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I have two young children (and two guinea pigs) who take up a lot of my time. Scuba diving is my main passion outside of work, but I also enjoy playing football – although that’s getting harder the older I get!
If you could only eat one meal, what would it be?
Either a family Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, or my mother-in-law’s goat meat stew, jollof rice and plantain.