Dr Alex Connock returns to School of Arts and Media as Academic Lead in creative and digital

Alex’s role will include development of new courses designed to match the evolving digital economy of the North.  MA and BA courses have already been created in Digital Video Production and Marketing, combining the best of the School of Arts and Media with the best of Salford Business School. He will also develop relationships between the university and Manchester’s fast-growth ecommerce and digital industries. 

Academically, Alex is also a Fellow in Marketing at Oxford University’s Said Business School, where he teaches BA, MBA and executive programmes in digital media and marketing.  And he is Senior Tutor at the National Film and Television School in creative entrepreneurship.  He has degrees from Oxford, Columbia, INSEAD and Salford.    

Commercially, Alex has grown multiple media companies including Missile Digital Studios 2017-20, Endemol Shine North (now Workerbee) 2012-17, and Ten Alps (now Zinc Media) with Bob Geldof from 1998-2011.  He has been six times shortlisted as Entrepreneur of the Year. 

His non-executive roles include directorships at UNICEF UK and The Halle Orchestra, and the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s UK5G Innovation Network.

Alex said: “It’s great to be back at the School of Arts and Media - although to be fair, I’d never really left since doing my PhD, and was still accessing the coffee shop for sausage sandwiches a couple of times a week. The connection between the university and the massively evolving digital media landscape in Manchester is a powerful one - both in research collaboration and substantial employment opportunities for the kind of practice-educated graduates in which Salford excels.  Even now, many outside the North have little idea how large-scale and truly globalised the digital sector is here, and it’s exciting for a university to be part of that rich ecosystem.”