As a man that bears so much responsibility in the University, one might expect Jon Greenwood, head of commercial services, to be somewhat more imposing. However, when it came to meeting the man in charge of everything from college bars to high-profile conferences, he was surprisingly down-to-earth.
Whereas it was internal factors that affected commercial services at the start of last year, Greenwood is the first to acknowledge that impending external factors will have a far more substantial effect on commercial services. The predicted government spending cuts are clearly at the forefront of his mind: “I’m predicting somewhere between 20-40% in cuts in the public sector this year. How this breaks down to universities is anybody’s guess but we’ve made an effort to prepare for this.”
As he explains these preparations, Greenwood gives the impression of a savvy businessman, but admits luck has been on his side, “Business isn’t easy otherwise everybody would be doing it. We put our spending plans in place three or four years ago so we’ve got a nice little capital pot. It’s worked really well for us since we were selling at a peak and now we’re buying at a time when we can put pressure on builders and construction companies.”
Good financial planning has been key to the Heslington East project and it’s clear that the brand new campus is fast becoming the jewel in the university’s crown. Commercial services are becoming more involved as the development continues and Greenwood is looking forward to doing his bit, “The next things coming over to Hes East will be my bits. We’re looking forward to organising the swimming pool, sports village and maybe even a running track.”
When forced to compare York’s campuses Greenwood concedes that there will always be a separation between Hes East and Hes West. However, he makes it clear that he doesn’t think either campus will fall behind. “It’s a challenge to make a 1960s campus as good as a 2010 campus. It may be the case that Hes East has awesome buildings but it’ll never have the history of Heslington West.”
He further insists that Hes West especially will not be forgotten about. “Over this summer we’ve been busy renovating Derwent bar, we put a Costa in there and we’ve also just spent another £200,000 on renovating the Roger Kirk Centre a well as redoing the Cookies café in Biology.”
Greenwood believes the toughest part of his job is working out what to prioritise. “I call myself a plate spinner because I have to go round the university keeping things going.”
Most students, on the other hand, would probably be clear in what they think his top priority should be: to address the declining use of campus bars. Greenwood himself admits that even though it’s an important part of his job, keeping campus bars alive will always be a struggle. “I for one wouldn’t want to be drinking in campus bars every night, I’d want to go off into town. You can’t blame students for doing that.” However Greenwood denies that this is really as big an issue as people think, saying: “Here at commercial service we have a turn over of £13 million so a couple of thousand pounds lost by the bars doesn’t bother us.” Having said this, he does have a number of ideas to increase the profit margins of campus bars, “It would be nice to break away from this collegiate bar system and just have everyone socialising together. I’d rather not have people thinking there are bars they can’t go into.”
When quizzed on the closure of Derwent bar at the start of last year, Greenwood adamantly denies that commercial services were to blame, saying “that decision was nothing to do me.” He suggests that, for him, commercial services is about much more than making profits. “At the end of the day we’re a support service. This is a university and the core business is teaching, learning and knowledge transfer. We know that and we know that we’re here to support that.”
What Greenwood regrets most about his time so far as Commercial Services director are the missed opportunities. “I regret not pushing hard enough, soon enough. At a university it takes forever to get things done.” Having said this, he still has a plethora of ideas for the future. “I’ve got plans to bring a hair salon to market square,” he tells us. “We’ve got empty spaces up there, which should be used for services to students. I did a lot of work trying to get a pharmacy in one of the units but unfortunately it fell through.”
As for his final word, Jon Greenwood left us with a message of hope for the impending cuts to University expenditure. “ Not one of my areas loses money. I sleep well at night knowing that we make a profit. It’s not a big profit but we do make enough profit to pay the electric bill.”