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About Us


The Global Career Services Summit is a community of global career service leaders who develop, implement, and supervise career services at higher education institutions around the world. As a peer led non-profit network, we aim to build global relationships, exchange ideas, and support each other as we advocate for inclusive career services and recruiting processes.

History


The inaugural Global Career Services Summit emerged from a conversation at the 2015 NACE conference when we were considering crafting a proposal featuring a global career services workshop at a future NACE conference. How we made the leap from a workshop to a major international training and development event still remains a mystery to us.

Although, after a few months of planning the event, we wondered whether our concept was beyond our capabilities!

Fortunately, the first Summit at the University of Leicester was extremely successful and as a result of the encouragement of the participants, we have gone on to host five further Summits in: Limerick, Ireland; Newcastle, UK; Toronto, Canada; London, UK; and Washington DC, USA, as well as two virtual Summits. 

The concept of bringing together career colleagues from all parts of the globe truly resonated with a broad range of career professionals and we have been extremely gratified with creating a venue to build a network of career services colleagues.

Leadership


Bob Athwal

Co-Founder

Bob Athwal is the Director of Culture & Belonging at Skyscanner. Bob has a unique background and perspective as he has been an employer, a vendor and a University senior leader. He is a regular International conference speaker specialising in Early Careers, Social mobility and Racial Equity, Student Experience and Student Outcomes. He has been the recipient of several industry awards relating to graduate recruitment and development as well as careers preparation within universities. Bob is the co-founder of the Global Career Services Summit and Fellow of the International Network of Employers and University Career Service Associations (INEUCS). He is also the co-founder of the 1 Hour Project, an initiative designed to level the playing field based upon his PhD to help advance social mobility amongst graduates. Bob was the first recipient of the ISE fellowship who did not serve as CEO or Chair, recognising his contribution to the sector as an employer and university educator.

Stephen Boyd

co-Director

Stephen is Director of Careers & Employability at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. He has extensive strategic leadership experience having worked in HE careers sector for over 20 years. During that time, he has been fortunate to work with some amazing colleagues and had the privilege to lead some fantastic teams and, as such, been involved in some major innovations and developments in the careers and employability space. Areas of interest are widespread covering all aspects of our work but his current focus includes organisational culture; diversifying talent into careers work; managing change within teams and services; and measuring impact of careers work. The Careers Service at Manchester Met has recently received national and international recognition for its pioneering careers work, picking up a number of awards in 2023 including Best Student Program at the Global Careers Services Summit in London. A keen writer, speaker, and researcher of all aspects of employability, his doctoral thesis was entitled “Expectation, Interaction And Transition: A Study Of University Careers Fairs” (a subsequent article on this research was published in the NICEC Journal. In his spare time Stephen is currently writing (very slowly) a crime fiction novel and is an avid follower of Manchester City Football (Soccer) Club.

Suzanne Helbig

Co-Director

Suzanne Helbig is the Associate Vice Provost at the Division of Career Pathways at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), a top ten public US university that is proud to be designated both a Hispanic Serving Institution and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Institution. Suzanne arrived at UCI with 15 years of experience in career services, including over 10 years at UC Berkeley.

In addition to serving as Programme Chair for the 2023 Global Career Services Summit, Suzanne also served as Programme Co-Chair for Summits in 2022 and 2021 (online), 2020 (set for Singapore) and 2018 (Newcastle, UK). She has been invited to speak at conferences in England, Ireland, Japan, and China.

Suzanne has served on the Board of Directors for both the Mountain Pacific Association of Colleges and Employers and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Her NACE involvement includes co-chairing numerous committees; presenting at NACE’s inaugural Executive Leadership Symposium; joining the faculty of NACE’s Management Leadership Institute; delivering numerous annual conference presentations; and authoring articles. Suzanne holds a Master of Arts in Higher Education from the University of Arizona. 

Mark Presnell

co-Director

Mark possesses over 20 years of experience in career services including his current role as Executive Director of Northwestern Career Advancement (NCA). Prior to Northwestern, Mark has worked at Johns Hopkins University, The University of Rochester, The University of Virginia School of Architecture, and The University of Kansas. He received his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Kansas. Like many undergraduates, he changed his major as an undergraduate from Aeronautical Engineering to Psychology at Purdue University. He has previously presented at both national and regional conferences on a variety of topics including recruiting consortia, use of social media in the job search, and teaching networking and other non-traditional job search strategies to undergraduates.

Currently, Mark supervises a staff of over 20 professionals who implement a broad range of career services to undergraduate and graduate students. Through school-based counseling and advising, NCA focuses on providing personalized career services across students’ four years at Northwestern. Additionally, NCA proactively develops robust partnerships with employers, parents, and alumni to educate and recruit Northwestern students.

Tom Devlin

Co-Founder (retired 2022)

Thomas C. Devlin was the Executive Director of the Career Center at the University of California, Berkeley prior to his retirement. Before joining Berkeley in 1997, he was the Executive Director of University Career Services at Cornell University.

Tom served as president of the US national professional organization, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) for 2009-10. Tom also received the NACE Kauffman Award for his significant contributions to the career profession and he co-wrote the chapter, “The Future of Career Services” for NACE’s book Leadership in Career Services: Voices from the Field. 

In addition to Tom’s consulting work and speaking engagements, he has traveled to Algeria, China, Rwanda, and the Philippines to assist in establishing the first career centers there. He was in China during the fall of 2015 to address the International Career Forum. In 2004, Tom was elected to the prestigious NACE Academy of Fellows.

The Berkeley Career Center has been awarded national honors by NACE for producing the best publication for students, for the most innovative program in the country, and for Career Ladders. In 2009 Tom received Berkeley’s Excellence in Management Award.

Tom’s avocation is traveling and he has visited more than 70 countries. He received a BA in History from the State University of New York at Geneseo and a MA in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.

Our Commitment to Inclusive Engagement


The Global Career Services Summit community is committed to creating an inclusive environment in which all individuals feel welcome, included, and safe to engage. Our different cultural viewpoints enhance our experiences, but may lead to misunderstandings. In our interactions, we assume positive intent and ask clarifying questions to check our assumptions.

The Global Career Services Summit does not and shall not discriminate based on race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations. We have zero tolerance for behaviors that promote discrimination.