Dr. Alex Fenton is currently Associate Professor of Digital Transformation at the University of Chester and Associate Dean for International in the Faculty of Science, Business and Enterprise. Alex graduated from the University of Bradford with a BSc in Electronic Imaging and Media Communications in 1997 and has worked in various web development, digital business and teaching/academic roles ever since.
Alex became Head of the Centre for Professional and Economic Development (CPED) at Chester University Business School in 2021, Associate Professor in 2022 and Associate Dean in 2023 . Prior to joining University of Chester in 2021, Alex was a Digital business academic at Salford Business School, Head of the Disruptive Technologies Research Cluster and has been Associate Development lead for the Sports Industry Zone at Salford University. He also ran a commercial digital media and web development company called EDinteractive and delivered CPD courses in digital business and digital marketing for various individuals and organisations at MediaCityUK and beyond.
Since 1997, Alex has been teaching and developing web and multimedia and writing award winning web applications. This included a content management system that has been used over 150 times for small and large projects for the likes of the University of Salford, The NHS, various Universities and the British Council.
Alex has been finalist and won a wide range of team and individual awards including, A European Search Award for his digital development work on the Passport to Trade 2.0 project, three Vice Chancellors Teaching awards, Postgraduate supervisor of the Year (2015) and Innovative lecturer of the year (2016) and a Big Chip Award in the Tech for Good Category (2018). He receives excellent student feedback for his teaching and has played a major role in excellent NSS results at the University of Salford.
His PhD is in social media, social capital and football was completed in 2018. He still works with English Premier League football clubs and top division rugby clubs on research and digital projects including Fan Fit. He has won and delivered various internal and external funded projects including UKSPF, HEIF, KTP and the prestigious Nesta Healthier Lives Data Fund with the Scottish Government. He has also published his work in the national press, top ranked international journals (including ABS3*), white papers and popular books (full list of publications). He is a journal reviewer for journals as well as a regular reviewer of book proposals from Routledge and other quality publishers.
Alex undertakes research and teaching in the areas of digital marketing, digital transformation, web and digital journalism including presenting papers at conferences and influencing government policy. Alex loves to travel and is a writer and photographer for magazines and loves festivals and technology. He also works on digital transformation research and practical projects, releasing a book Digital Transformation, A Results Driven Approach.
He has a strong national and international network, having been visiting professor at Coppead in Brazil and completed joint research projects in Canada, India and America.
Full CV on request