Newly appointed Head of School: Professor Kim Fam
Having officially stepped into the Head of School role for the School of Marketing International Business last week after eight months in an acting capacity, as well as being appointed Professor of Marketing in June this year, he says he feels like he has reached the pinnacle of his academic career to date - and that's something to celebrate.
However, when he first started his career in retailing and advertising, he never imagined he would become an academic more than a decade later.
I kind of slipped into it - when I was living in Hong Kong before 1997 I started teaching MBA students and undergraduates in the evenings as well as doing my day job - I ended up doing eight days a week.
Realising that he'd found his niche, Professor Kim Fam secured a scholarship with Newcastle University in Australia to do a PhD in Advertising. I come from a very humble, poor family in Malaysia where you have to fight to earn a place to study, says Professor Fam.
For my undergraduate degree my parents sent me to Scotland and life was tough - I had to work in a strawberry field in the summer and a freezing works to earn money to go home to Malaysia. So getting a scholarship at Newcastle and having everything paid for was really great.
His first academic position was at Otago University, and he has been at Victoria since September 2008.
As well as working on several research projects at once, in particular focused on faith and cultural advertising and promotion, and teaching two papers, he undertakes a number of international roles.
He is Adjunct Professor at Szechenyi University in Hungary and at Southwest University of Finance and Economics in China; Editor of Asian Journal of Business Research; Editorial Board member of European Journal of Marketing; Asian Journal of Business and Accounting; International Journal of Advertising; and Founding Director of Marketing in Asia Group (MAG) Scholar.
My international contacts are really important to me, says Professor Fam.
I work with researchers and collaborators in Hong Kong, China, India, Malaysia, Australia, Hungary, Portugal and the UK.
He says he is looking forward to working with academics in his school to assist them to be the best they can be.
Opportunities don't come around - you need to grab it; and things don't come around if you don't work hard for it - you have to make it happen. To make it happen in academia today is to do research and publications and collaborate overseas.