Ardagh Glass access Professional Development Programmes through LLMC
Starting at the bottom and reaching the top in business is not easy and Julie Watson, Director of Operations at Ardagh Glass says the management courses she has followed at the University of Lincoln have helped her enormously.
Julie started in the 1980’s working on the production line, inspecting glass bottles. Thirty later on she has worked her way up to be Director of Operations at the same site, one of 88 locations operated by the global metal and glass packaging company Ardagh Group.
Each year a handful of managers at Ardagh Group are invited to attend postgraduate professional development courses at the Lincoln Business School and Julie first enrolled on the Postgraduate Certificate of Management in 1997.
Over the course of a decade Julie studied for the Certificate, the Diploma and finally the Master of Business Administration, and she says the effect has been life-changing.
"Studying for the MBA has helped me phenomenally throughout my career and I think I’m a better person for it in how I manage and direct people," she says.
"The self-reflective aspects of the course have had a great impact on me – I would say I ‘saw the light’ and grew as a person while I was studying for the MBA."
After 30 years at Ardagh Group Julie is now responsible for 256 employees at the Knottingley plant, and she says her studies have really helped her to perform at her best.
"It’s helped me to manage and direct and I’ve become a lot more knowledgeable about my own business, because the projects we chose to work on were based on our own experience," she says.
Julie, who completed her MBA and graduated at Lincoln Cathedral in 2009, says studying at postgraduate level while working full-time in a high-pressured job is not easy.
"We had one workshop a month at the university and the rest of the time we were studying at home, which requires self-reliance and discipline. It’s difficult at times but you have to keep reminding yourself that there’s something in it for you as well as for the company.
"It’s helped me professionally and personally. I’ve grown so much. I’d go so far as to say that the MBA was the most powerful thing I’ve ever done."