Staff Profile
Gordon Parker
- Associate Lecturer
College of Creative Arts, Technology and Engineering
Gordon Parker
- Associate Lecturer
College of Creative Arts, Technology and Engineering
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Before joining Buckinghamshire New University in 2024, I served as Managing Director of an international management consultancy, delivering assignments for organisations including the UK Parliament, BBC, Microsoft, and numerous FTSE 100 companies. My work focused on reviewing and improving the operational performance of in‑house operations, property and facilities management functions, with particular emphasis on governance, project delivery, and operational effectiveness.
My early career began in design and site management, progressing to senior project manager and Project Director roles. I have led large multi‑disciplinary teams within major consultancy and operations organisations including an appointment to establish and manage property and facilities operations for 118 sites across the UK as part of a national public‑sector improvement initiative. This work contributed to the transformation of the organisation into one of the UK’s largest companies.
Following a period as a board director in my mid‑30s, I moved fully into consultancy, becoming co‑Director of a strategic consultancy practice before later founding and leading my own company.
Over the past 20 years, I have also been engaged by many of the UK’s leading Higher Education Institutions, including Imperial College London, King’s College London, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, and Reading, helping them enhance their operational and estates management capabilities.
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I studied Civil Engineering at the University of the West of England and Portsmouth University, becoming a Chartered Engineer in 1987. My academic and professional training has supported a career that has taken me across the UK and internationally on large, complex, and high‑profile assignments.
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I am a member of the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM). I passed the Institute of Structural Engineers professional exams becoming a Chartered Engineering and MIStructE.
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My specialist knowledge in operational governance, estates management, and strategic improvement has led to assignments during my career such as:
- Advising the Speaker of the House of Commons (Sir Lindsay Hoyle) on the review and improvement of the UK Parliament’s operational arrangements.
- Helping Nokia and Siemens set up a new $15bn global company to focus on Networks
- Managing one of the 5 ‘burning platform’ initiatives to save the Nokia business in 2012
- Supporting the development of a new city for a high net value Indian international investor.
- Working with the Chairman of EMAAR (developers of the world’s tallest building) to enhance operational quality management in their new city developments around Dubai.
- Helping companies design, launch and manage substantial outsourcing initiatives, of which the most recent was a £2bn outsource for a FTSE 100 manufacturing company in 2025.
- Delivering major construction and development projects, including high‑value residential properties on Kensington Palace Gardens, a major town centre development in Welwyn Garden City, and numerous schools, offices, and sports facilities.
Across my career, I have led extensive training programmes for middle and senior managers and provided coaching and mentoring for dozens of senior executives. While I have been involved in many large‑scale operational reviews, the greatest satisfaction has come from seeing the development and improved performance of the teams I have led and the clients I have supported.