Dr. Alex Fenton is a highly experienced, award winning digital media academic, web and digital developer, trainer and project manager working successfully in both public and private sectors since 1997. Alex was Head of the Centre for Professional and Economic Development at University of Chester and is currently Associate Dean International for the Faculty of Science, Business and Enterprise.

He is a senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was previously a Digital Business academic at Salford Business School. He completed his PhD in digital marketing in 2018 and has published a wide range of articles including world leading academic journals,  succeeded in bidding for internal and external research funding including KTP and primary investigator for various funded projects including the Nesta Healthier Lives Data Fund. He was Primary Investigator and Head of Centre for several multi-million pound European funded business support initiatives in Cheshire and Warrington (including Business Growth Programme Cheshire and Warrington and Digital Solutions in Shrewsbury) and a large UK Shared Prosperity business support project.  He is a very experienced academic and postgraduate supervisor including PhD supervisions. Full CV on request. 

Work History

Alex has extensive experience of digital transformation and digital development and search and social media. He is PhD and Masters dissertation supervisor and has held a range of leadership roles including Associate Development Lead for an Industry Collaboration Zone, Head of Centre for Professional and Economic Development and Associate Dean International at University of Chester.

He ran a commercial unit at Salford University – EDinteractive.co.uk and has undertaken successful projects with The British Council, the NHS, GVA Grimley, Bolton University, Lancaster University and Salford University. Before then Alex was chosen to work for a company called Video Arts as a Senior Media Developer developing e-learning multimedia packages for The Police, DEFRA, BT, The Woolwich Bank and many others. Alex’s first graduate job was as one of the University of Salford’s first full time web and digital developers working for the Virtual Chamber project getting Manchester and Salford Online in 1997.

Awards and grant funding

Alex holds a wide range of individual and team teaching and digital industry awards and external funding.

  • UK Shared Prosperity – Business Support, primary investigator (2024)
  • KTP Capacity Building find (2023)
  • Head of Centre and Primary Investigator for Business Growth Programme Cheshire and Warrington (ERDF multi-million pounds project (ended 2023)
  • Nesta – Healthier Lives Data Fund  (£30K) (2019)
  • Big Chip Awards – Tech for Good (2018)
  • HEIF Knowledge Exchange – HydroX (2017)
  • 3X Winner of Vice Chancellors Distinguished Teaching Awards (2015, 2016, 2018)
  • Outstanding student support, Deans Awards (2017)
  • Finalist for Times Higher Awards – Outstanding Entrepreneurship (2017) and Business School of the Year (2022)
  • Postgraduate Supervisor of the Year (2015)
  • Big Chip Digital Industry Awards (2015, 2016)
  • Innovative Lecturer of the Year, SU Awards (2016)
  • European Search Awards Winner (2014)

Education

  • PhD in Digital Marketing at the University of Salford (2018)
  • Awarded Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) (2017)
  • Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practise teaching qualification (2017)
  • Masters with Distinction in Creative Technology –  Salford University (2011)
  • BSc Hons Electronic Imaging and Media Communications – Bradford University (1997)

Digital Skills

A skilled qualitative and digital researcher to PhD level and beyond. A daily user of the Adobe Creative suite, Alex has been developing robust, dynamic web applications in PHP / MySQL and ASP / ASP.net for over a decade. Alex is a solid designer and a highly experienced programmer, developer and digital marketer who has great experience creating video, animation, graphics and weaving these together. Alex teaches and runs a very popular search and social media marketing CPD course at MediaCityUK and practises what he preaches running EDinteractive.

Hobbies

Alex enjoys Photography, Socialising, Campervanning, Festivals, growing apples and travel writing. He writes regular travel articles for a popular VW Magazine.

LinkedIn

For more information and recommendations, please see LinkedIn