Professor Neil Mercer, Chairman of the Presidential Search Committee, said: ‘We are delighted at Dr Freeling’s election, which is the conclusion of a long and thorough process to select a new President. A number of strong candidates were considered for the role and we have no doubt that Dr Freeling has all the requisite qualities to lead the College through the next phase of its history’.
Anthony Freeling is a former Scholar of St John's College Cambridge, where he graduated with First Class Honours in the Mathematics Tripos in 1978. He subsequently qualified with an MPhil and a Cambridge PhD in Management Studies. He spent eighteen years working at McKinsey & Company in the UK, where he was a Senior Partner, leading its Marketing and Sales Practice across Europe. A recognised authority on marketing, Anthony Freeling published Agile Marketing in 2011. Since 2006 he has chaired the Development Committee for the UK's Open University, and serves as a member of its Council. He is a Director of Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, and Research Director of the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Councils for Europe and Asia. He is a trustee of UnLtd, the Foundation for social entrepreneurs and also a trustee of the PHG Foundation.
He became a City Fellow of Hughes Hall in 2008. He said: ‘This is an exciting time for the College with the development of a major new student accommodation building currently in planning and a range of other initiatives being developed to advance the position of Hughes as a leading College of the University. Hughes Hall has a number of distinctive strengths on which it can build, particularly in research and teaching oriented towards the professional world, and we have a strong team in place at the College with whom I shall work closely to take the College forward.’
Dr Freeling also acknowledged the achievement of the current President, Sarah Squire: ‘The College has flourished under Sarah’s leadership and grown very significantly from one of the smaller colleges to one of greater than medium size. Following her will be daunting, but I relish the challenge.’ The Hughes Hall student body is now 620 strong and includes just over one hundred undergraduates.
Sarah Squire commented: ‘The College has chosen one of its own Fellows to lead it into the future and this is a sign of its confidence. I have grown to know Dr Freeling well over the past few years and have no doubt that he will make an excellent President of Hughes Hall. I shall make the most of my final year, assured that I shall be leaving the College in good hands.’
Dr Freeling will become the fifteenth head of Hughes Hall, which was founded in 1885 and is Cambridge’s oldest graduate College. It is also one of the most international, with alumni in over eighty countries and two thirds of the 2013 intake from overseas.
Hughes Hall has announced the election of Dr Anthony Freeling as its new President, following a meeting of the Governing Body on 4 December. He will succeed current President Sarah Squire upon the completion of her eight year term of office next September.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.