Portsmouth Business School

Profile

Sarah Turnbull  PhD, MBA, MSc, DipM, MCIM, DipCAM, AHEA

Before joining the university I spent 15 years working as a practitioner in advertising agencies both in London and Dubai. I began my career in account management in a global agency group in London where I gained extensive international experience on a number of  leading FMCG, service and business-to-business accounts. My airline experience led to my appointment as Client Services Director on the Emirates account and I moved to Dubai where I managed the advertising account for 8 years.

In addition to my responsibility for global campaign management on a number of the airline brands, I was responsible for all the Middle East markets. My role required extensive travel throughout the Middle East, including Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Syria. As well as responsibility for the Emirates passenger, Emirates Sky Cargo, Emirates Recruitment and Emirates Holidays account, I managed a number of prestigious government accounts such as Dubai Ports Authority, Dubai World Trade Centre and Jebel Ali Free Zone.  My experience and knowledge of the Middle East has lead to me speaking at a number of conferences in the region on business-to-business relationships in the Middle East and Islamic markets.

In addition to my time in the Middle East I have also spent two years in San Diego where I worked on an advertising research project investigating the advantages and disadvantages of advertising standardisation in Middle East markets, which was published in an International Journal.

I have won a number of International advertising awards for client campaigns, including Newsweek International, New York Film Festival and IAA awards.

Research Interests

I have two main areas of research interest: Firstly, advertising in the UK and Middle East and secondly Global Leadership.

The first area of interest, advertising has led to my undertaking of a five year study of the creative development process. The study which is now complete has examined the processes used by London advertising agencies when developing creative campaigns for their clients and has lead to my development of a new model for advertising creative development process. As well as the process itself, the study examines the influence of conflict and the agency-client relationship on the creative development process.

My second area of interest is Global Leadership. I am currently working with female scientists in Qatar, UK and the United Arab Emirates to explore the barriers to females working in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET). The research work being undertaken in these countries includes a number of Global Leadership Development workshops and individual assessments using the Global Competencies Inventory (GCI). It is hoped that the research being undertaken in this area will highlight the challenges faced by females in SET and inform theory and practice on career development for female scientists in the future.  

Teaching

My teaching has included advertising strategy and practice for the Masters degree programmes and research methods for Masters dissertations.