Megan Reeves

Oration

It is a great privilege to welcome Megan Reeves, former Deputy College Secretary of Birkbeck, to the Fellowship of Birkbeck.

In December 2024 Megan retired after 22 years of service and dedication to Birkbeck. At her leaving party, someone gave a speech in poetry rather than prose. This sets the bar in terms of thinking about Megan’s contribution to Birkbeck.

Although this oration is not in poetry, it does offer a personal impression of why Megan has meant so much to Birkbeck, based on my 19 years of working alongside her. Sometimes, the stars align and the right people come to work for the right organisation and they stick together through thick and thin.

There are reasons why Megan chose to join Birkbeck and remained in a senior management post at the College for so many years. If you talk to her, she espouses and understands, and deeply feels, the principles on which Birkbeck is founded and during her time here, Megan’s role was constantly changing as she took on, faced and resolved new organisational challenges.

Megan was born in Sussex and at the age of five her family moved to Lancashire. After that, her father retrained as a draftsman and they moved to Zambia. Megan's mother and father both left school at 14, but they were committed to ensuring she had an education. Some of that education was in Zambia and some in England, where she was schooled away from her family. Despite these challenges, Megan did well at school and got onto a degree course at UCL where, for a short time, she studied zoology and genetics. But zoology and genetics were not for Megan, and neither was UCL, and she made a bold choice to take a different path.

To facilitate a change of direction, she moved away from university, took part-time jobs to work out what she wanted to do, regrouped, and studied for a degree in accountancy. Armed with that accountancy degree, for a short time Megan, worked at an accountancy firm before being appointed to her first role in university administration at St George's Medical School. From St George’s Megan was drawn to Birkbeck. Why Birkbeck? Because Birkbeck had a problem to solve and Megan loved challenges. At the time, Birkbeck had a very entrepreneurial and successful faculty of continuing education which had got in a bit of problem with its record keeping and administration, and the College needed someone to sort it out. That person was Megan.

In our response to COVID, Megan was the person who coordinated Birkbeck’s well-being, health and safety, and reporting requirements. This involved considerable difficult and technical work, and it also required a deep understanding and care for people. This has always been part of Megan's contribution to Birkbeck and her colleagues.

Throughout her time at Birkbeck, Megan has taken on difficult challenges. She and I are particularly proud of the work we did to in-source our cleaning, security and catering staff. A difficult proposition with Megan in the lead. Again, the issue of putting people first was very much part of her work.

In addition to what you do in an organisation, there is the way that you do it. Megan has had a senior role at Birkbeck for 20 plus years. She has always used her role as a platform to care for people and to shine a light on the talents and achievements of others and see them prosper. During her career, she has spotted and cared for staff across the whole of Birkbeck - something that everyone has appreciated.

As well as being an excellent leader, Megan is also a great team-player and she has often brought her sense of fun to work scenarios. One of the things many people will recall was that she had a biscuit tin and in the middle of difficult meetings she would unveil biscuits, so we could all have a break before moving forward. She also had a legendary wine fridge.

For all that she has done and contributed to Birkbeck, it is a great pleasure to welcome but Megan to the Fellowship and celebrate her time at Birkbeck.