For Colin Mayer, the new dean of Saïd Business School, there is a sense that his appointment to the top job is the completion of unfinished business.

Prof Mayer, 53, was the first professor to be appointed to the school at Oxford University in the UK and was closely involved in setting up the business school in 1996. He had always been a staunch supporter of the creation of a business school at Oxford and now that he has taken the helm, "this is part of the process, to complete the objective".