Would the real Mike Hansen please step forward...

Well, I was brought up in Watford. At school I guess I was a scientist. I suppose the place to go was IC. But you wouldn’t, nobody ever did, it was too close to home.

When I was in the lower sixth, my Chemistry master mentioned that he had received a bursary from Shell to go to university, so I thought well this sounds good and I wrote to all the big companies I had ever heard of saying I’m a bright kid, I want to go to university, will you pay me, and BP put me through university doing Economics and Chemistry. I ended up in Scotland, University of Stirling. Stirling spelt with an ‘i’.

I was employed by BP until four years ago, that’s twenty-two years, which was a ball. It was a lot of fun, but I guess I got a middle age crisis or something. The last ten years were nearly all overseas and I reached a point where I’d had enough. It was at that stage I thought well hang on, I don’t want to be at Head Office in London, you know big offices, so that was when I started looking about leaving BP. Then I got a phonecall asking whether I would be interested in coming to IC and so it all sort of worked out and I ended up here after all, I’m delighted to say.

And what did you do within BP, was finance your area?

Well, when I graduated from the University of Stirling, I was smart enough, I’m glad to say, to realise that if I ever did want to leave BP a CV with University of Stirling on is not that great. It seemed smart to get an additional qualification, so I qualified as an accountant while I was in BP and then spent the next twenty years desperately trying not to be an accountant.

So you had obviously had enough after twenty-two years, but did you generally enjoy your time up until then?

Oh yes, it’s a big fun place. If you’re an accountant doing things with lots of money is always nice. I mean whether you’re spending it or borrowing it, if its got lots of zeros on the end, it’s quite pleasant.

Interestingly, people have asked if it was difficult to come here after working for a multi-national oil company and the answer’s no, not at all. The culture is actually, strange to say, not that dissimilar, IC is quite like BP in some ways, in that its numerate, I mean it’s engineeringy based, it’s international, clearly, and it has, what’s the word, a confidence i.e. arrogance to the place because IC’s good at what it does as is BP.

What do actually do as the Director of Finance?

What do I do? Finance is a broad set, it goes from the making sure staff salaries are paid monthly through to making sure the electricity bills are paid otherwise the lights go out. Then there’s the glamorous bit, dealing with the Executive Committee of the Governing Body and and the Boarding Committee. It’s a very varied job, in simple terms it’s probably anything to do with money.

Do you socialise with the people you work with?

The place does suffer from the fact that it is in the centre of London and many of the staff commute. I probably socialise more than I have done with my work colleagues in former places I’ve worked but I don’t spend all my time hanging out with the people I work with. One has different circles of friends in different places.

Do you worry about waste in your department? Do you attempt to cut the cost of running Finance?

Not particularly Finance. Obviously we try and cut the cost of everything, whatever it is and it’s always a trade off between cutting costs and keeping the services going. There are some things which are really easy wins, like buying your electricity cheaper. It would be difficult for me to do my job if my colleagues didn’t think I was at least doing my bit on the efficiency front. I have a completely clear conscience on that front.

Your job is cost-cutting and being efficient?

Well, no, it’s getting good value for money on the things I’m involved with whatever that happens to be and obviously, because I look at the numbers more than most, I’m able to do that.

Do you feel that the administrative staff really reagrd themselves as being here for the students and because of the students, or do they resent having to deal with the ‘great unwashed’?

No, I have got a completely clear conscience on the attitude of my employees. What you don’t see is the amount of crap they take from certain students, you don’t see the verbal abuse, you don’t see the stuff being thrown at them which happens. What probably annoys me more than anything about this place is an inference that for some reason because people are not directly academically related, they are somehow less concerned about the well-being of College. It’s interesting, when University Challenge was on and we were winning, it was a real buzz, people at the operational level were really proud in the pub to say I work at Imperial College.

If someone thinks they are not getting a reasonable service then they should complain, if they don’t get satisfaction they should come and see me in Room 442 or email me at m.hansen@ic.ac.uk. Fundamentally, I expect my people, and they know it and accept it, to provide a reasonable service. If it wasn’t for the students and staff we wouldn’t be here, the only reason we’re here is to make the whole thing work.

Being on the Bookstore committee, why did you give Waterstones the tender?

I don’t think it’s fair to give my personal opinion because it was a committee decision. What I’m happy to say is that I have no doubt that our main concern was to get the best bookshop. Whether it was the right decision or not, some people believe the Union could have done better because of their committment. I don’t know but I’m absolutely sure that it was done in a completely fair and open-minded way and that the union was well- represented. It was difficult, if they’d done a really bum job it would have been easy but they didn’t, they did a really good presentation. There was a difference of views, people had different standpoints but at the end of the day, I don’t think that anybody would say that they didn’t fully agree with the decision. I’ll be very disapointed if we don’t end up with a very good bookshop,

What do you do in your spare time?

It depends on the day I suppose. I do social running once a week with the City Hash House Harriers, I was pounding around Bayswater last night. We’ve run from the Southside bar on two or three ocassions this year.

Have you ever run in the Marathon?

No, it’s a drinking club with a running problem, real athletes needn’t apply! We’re not very serious. We start from the pub, run the circle back, and spend a few hours drinking. Last year we ended up, ninety of us, at the top of the Queen’s Tower for a few beers.