Meet the team
Every issue we speak to one of the CILEX team to find out more about them and what goes on behind the scenes
Chris Glennie is the Programme Manager for CILEX’s new professional qualification (CPQ) which launched earlier this year. He tells us about his years working in publishing and education, why this project is proving so interesting and how he has been using lockdown to improve his ballroom dancing skills.
What does your role as a programme manager involve?
I’m responsible for the development and implementation of the CPQ. There are many aspects to this given that the CPQ framework is such a radical departure from the way that CILEX has delivered its qualifications in the past. Its development and launch are intimately bound up with a whole new approach by CILEX to its business model and the way our members are seen by the market.
The project is a much bigger than a simple revamp of our qualification, which for me means working across the whole organisation, not only with the team developing the module and assessment content but also with colleagues developing the supporting learning materials, the back-office processes and the business development and marketing messages essential to ensuring a successful launch.
Tell us a bit more about your background? How did you come to work at CILEX?
I began my career in academic and educational publishing, working for a number of years publishing textbooks for undergraduate courses including business and computing, engineering and maths. I then moved to school-level publishing and my last role in the industry was as publishing director for the Letts Revision Guides, which people tend to remember from their or their children’s exam days.
Since then, I have spent the last 10 years working for professional bodies in a range of senior leadership roles, as well as a period as interim managing director of the National Extension College, the distance learning forerunner to the Open University that supports students studying for GCSEs and A-levels.
All of this stood me in good stead for my role here at CILEX which needed someone who understood the sector and what needed to be achieved with the CPQ.
What is a typical day like for you?
I have a lot of meetings – some people might think that sounds dreadful but for me it’s the best way to ensure I’m on top of every aspect of the project and that all the elements are joining up as they should. It’s also how as a team we anticipate potential challenges and work through solutions.
If I’m not in meetings, then I’m creating lists of issues that need resolution, either at project, executive or even board level, and then writing or editing papers that support various proposals.
What are you working on at the moment?
Key things that are uppermost in my mind include working with the business development team to ensure we have training providers in place to deliver CPQ later this year, helping the qualifications team prepare a formal proposal to CILEX Regulation to have CPQ recognised as a route to authorisation as a CILEX Lawyer and ensuring we have all the systems and process requirements captured so that web processes and the customer relationship management system will support the new qualification.
I am also writing blogs for the website to support the wider marketing communications campaign as well as developing a framework to work more closely with universities to deliver CPQ as a degree route.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The variety. While this is one project with one goal, there are so many elements to it and I genuinely feel as if I am using all the experience I have gathered over my career to support it.
It’s incredibly exciting and motivating to see how the CPQ is at the heart of CILEX’s bold ambitions to change the way that legal services are delivered and how lawyers (including paralegals) are trained and developed.
What do you like to do away from your job to relax or have fun?
In summer I play cricket, which was even possible during at least half of last season and I have high hopes for next. I’m less mobile than I was, and need braces on both knees while playing, but it’s really the love of my life so want to keep going for as long as possible.
Since 2015 my wife and I have also been taking ballroom and Latin dancing classes – I don’t yet need the knee-braces for that, but it’s better exercise than you might think. We’ve been with the same group of people for six years now and we do it for the social life as much as the dancing, even attending classes on Zoom.
Finally, I am a mad reader, but also a terrible book-buyer, so I’ve set myself the task in 2021 of actually reading the unread books that I have bought or accumulated over the years. I’m doing a ‘virtual commute’ every day before work, replicating the reading time I used to have on the train, which is helping me fulfil this challenge!
