Alumnus of the Year 2016

Every year we celebrate some of the outstanding achievements in our alumni community, and the impact that these have on our students with our Alumnus of the Year award.

This year, we received more nominations than ever before for the Alumnus of the Year award. We saw an incredibly impressive rand of alumni achievements and accomplishments, and many examples of alumni continuing to support Brunel and its students. From the shortlist compiled by our judges, the alumni community voted for their favourite. After a close competition, we are very happy to announce that the 2016 award will presented to Mr. Tim Backshall (Industrial Design, 1989).

Tim studied Industrial Design at Brunel at the courses’ inception, and was part of the first year to graduate from the programme. He went on to have a successful career in design before starting his own business, Integrity, in 1997. The company has two main objectives: outstanding client service and a dynamic workplace environment. The first aim drives them to provide a complete service to clients to achieve consistency across all aspects of their brand, ensuring that the values of the client organisation are properly represented in all aspects of their business. The second objective is to create a great place to work, where people are valued for their strengths, and where the benefits of teamwork create a strong culture around helping others to do their very best for clients. Integrity provides brand services to well-known companies, including Waitrose, Volkswagen, Virgin and CenterParcs, and also in the public sector for police forces, universities and the NHS.

Tim credits the skills and thinking that Brunel instils in its designers which helped him shape both the company and its unique service offerings, focusing on brand implementation - bringing brand vision to life. This also led Tim to look to Brunel in 2003 when he decided to take on his first placement student, and marked the beginning of a long and fruitful employment relationship with Brunel.

In the years since, Tim and Integrity have employed many placement students, as well as taking on a growing number of graduates. Currently, Integrity has 13 Brunel alumni amongst their staff of 19 people. During their involvement with Brunel, Tim has employed 14 placement students, six of whom returned to Integrity for permanent employment after graduation, and 18 Brunel alumni as graduate employees. This translates into 88 years-worth of employment, with total salaries paid to Brunel graduates and undergraduates of over £2 million! At Integrity, Tim has created an environment that encourages and nurtures development in young graduates. Four out of the five members of the company’s current senior team originally joined as new graduates. Three of them are Brunel graduates and two undertook placements at the company during their time as students.

We are delighted to hear of Tim’s success and cherish his ongoing relationship with Brunel. We are very proud to present the award to him this year.