Original Thinking Podcast

In this episode of the Original Thinking Podcast, Jenni Rose and Richard Karmel talk to our host, Jim Pendrill, about how companies can provide confidence and credibility to their accounts in terms of respecting human rights.

Erik Beulen, Professor of Information Management at Alliance Manchester Business School, discusses the challenges around data analytics and digital transformation.

Professor Michelle Carter, Professor of Information Systems at Alliance Manchester Business School, asks whether we are doing enough to ensure AI impacts our lives in truly beneficial ways.Watch a video of this episode: https://youtu.be/wR6gMBCYWUoIf you're enjoying the Original Thinking Podcast, please leave us a rating or review on whichever platform you're listening on!

Peter Buckley, AMBS's 200th Anniversary Chair in International Business, joins us on our Original Thinking Podcast to talk about the challenges, risks, and future of multinationals.

In our latest Original Thinking filmed podcast Beccy Speight, Chief Executive of the RSPB, joined Professor Paulo Quattrone from Alliance Manchester Business School to discuss how businesses must better encompass Nature in their decision-making and also recognise Nature as an active stakeholder.

In this Original Thinking Podcast, Vlad Jiman, Director of Data at NBrown, discusses how to build a data culture within a large organisation with Professor Panos Constantinides from Alliance Manchester Business School.

What role can corporate sustainability play in terms of business transformation? Zara De Belder, a recent MBA graduate from Alliance Manchester Business School and sustainability expert, joins Claire Binns, Senior Impact Manager at Sykes Holiday Cottages, to discuss the subject. Claire also talks first-hand about the recent steps Sykes Cottages has taken in terms of its specific approach to measuring and assessing its sustainability credentials.

Three years on from the height of the pandemic this podcast hosted by Alliance Manchester Business School explores the lessons learnt from Protect, a major UK government study into the transmission of the Covid-19 virus and the wider UK research programme around Covid-19. Debating the findings of the nationwide study are Professor David Fishwick, Chief Medical Advisor at Health and Safety Executive GB, Sheena Johnson, Professor of Work Psychology and Wellbeing at Alliance Manchester Business School, and Martie Van Tongeren, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at The University of Manchester.

How do leaders of large organisations and businesses remain agile and nimble when faced with so many day-to-day challenges? Panos Constantinides, Professor of Digital Innovation at Alliance Manchester Business School, and Simon Hayward, Managing Director and Global Lead for Leadership and Culture at Accenture, discuss how change takes place across organisations, and in particular look at how to embark upon digital transformation.

What does it mean to be truly sustainable and how should companies and organisations approach their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies? These were just some of the key topics explored by Sacha Sadan, Director of ESG at the Financial Conduct Authority, and Professor Konstantinos Stathopoulos from Alliance Manchester Business School, at a podcast hosted by Alliance Manchester Business School.

German biotech firm BioNTech became world famous for developing the mRNA-based Covid vaccine with Pfizer. One of the key figures behind the success was Chief Business and Commercial Officer Sean Marett, who took his MBA at AMBS. In our latest Original Thinking live podcast, Sean shares the extraordinary story about how the company turned itself on its head from a business developing cancer treatments to one that rapidly began developing a Covid vaccine. He also talks candidly about how the MBA equipped him with crucial skills that he was able to call upon during the Covid crisis. At our recent Vital Topics lecture Sean admitted that initially his company had no idea if its Covid vaccine was going to work. “We had no idea if anyone was going to buy it even if it worked. We had no supply agreements in place. No global distribution. We had to do all that in 11 months. In the end we actually received approval for the vaccine while we were still scaling up. This meant that 180 countries all wanted our vaccine so we had to decide how to distribute that.” With the immediate Covid crisis over, the company is now renewing its focus on cancer treatments. For instance, in January this year it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK government to test its different technologies in cancer patients in the UK. 

Advances in data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics are completely changing the way we think about and do business. In our first podcast of 2023, which was also filmed in our new podcast suite, Professor Richard Allmendinger from AMBS and David Walters from North-West based fund manager River Capital joined Chair Jim Pendrill from AMBS to discuss the issue. Richard, who is a Professor of Applied Artificial Intelligence, and also a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, recently joined the advisory board of the North's first dedicated AI fund run by River Capital. The fund focuses specifically on early-stage, high growth AI, machine learning and data science investment opportunities across the North. David Walters works in the equity team at River Capital as a technology investment director, supporting technology businesses across the region. He has been a CTO at multiple PE-backed companies and has also run AI practices.

This episode will be hosted by Elvira Uyarra, Professor of Innovation Studies at Alliance Manchester Business School. In recent years, and in response to major societal challenges such as climate change, migration, or food and energy security, innovation policy has both broadened its scope for action and widened the goals it is expected to address. This implies a shift from generic and primarily R&D-based innovation support measures towards a new (or third) ‘generation' of innovation policy - variously referred to as challenge-led, mission-orientated or transformative innovation policies. A more targeted and challenge-oriented innovation policy should, it is argued, help to deliver desired, and not just more, innovations. This implies a more active role of the state in funding risk-taking activities and in creating - not just correcting - markets. Whilst there is much agreement that bolder, more customised and directional policies are needed to tackle the societal challenges of our time, there is less consensus about how such policies should be implemented in practice. Drawing from her personal research journey, Professor Uyarra will discuss the rationales, challenges and particularly the key role of ‘place' in this new policy agenda. Elvira Uyarra is Professor of Innovation Studies at Alliance Manchester Business School (University of Manchester) where she is also Director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Her research sits at the intersection between innovation studies, policy studies and regional studies and has in the last few years focused on topics such as the role of universities in regional development, the role of regions in new generation innovation policies and the innovation impacts of public procurement. She has authored more than 40 scholarly articles in leading journals in geography, innovation studies and management, including Research Policy, Technovation, Regional Studies and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Her work has been funded by the UK Research Council, international organisations (such as EU, OECD, IADB), and numerous national and regional bodies internationally. She is a Fellow of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) and editor of the journal Regional Studies. This episode will be facilitated by Philip McCann, Professor of Urban & Regional Economics at Alliance MBS.

Berne Ferry, Head of the National School of Healthcare Science, will deliver this year's Teddy Chester lecture Into the foreground: The emergence of healthcare science and public consciousness. This annual lecture marks the contribution of Teddy Chester, who was the first professor of social administration at the University of Manchester. From his appointment in the early 1950s, to his retirement in the 1970s he was an influential pioneer in management development, using evidence and research with policy makers, and working with clinical leaders. He was involved in founding and leading the NHS Graduate Training Scheme, and in founding Manchester Business School Into the foreground: The emergence of healthcare science and public consciousness Healthcare science has a long and varied history, encompassing over fifty distinct specialties working in the NHS. Around 55,000 NHS scientists are employed in hospital and community services, some of them working at consultant and director level. Until the advent of the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, public perceptions of scientists working in healthcare varied from being non-existent to a vague perception of an individual in a white lab coat, wearing safety glasses and peering through a microscope within the basement of a hospital. COVID-19 increased the visibility of the immensely diverse work of healthcare scientists and allowed patients and NHS colleagues to begin to recognise what a valuable resource the NHS had in this small but integral NHS workforce. Two years on, the perception that fellow NHS professionals and the public now have of NHS scientists and scientists in general has altered irrevocably. Fellow NHS colleagues and NHS patients are not only interested and open to scientists being involved in patient care but genuinely want to engage with the science behind their tests and their treatment. This talk will describe how, in the 2000s, a disparate collection of healthcare sciences was coalesced into a unifying concept that led to the rise of the ‘healthcare scientist' as a key actor in UK healthcare diagnosis, treatment and innovation. Berne will outline the long and continuing journey that led to the emergence of the profession of healthcare science, give examples of how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this and consider how healthcare science and the need for scientists to step up into NHS leadership roles will develop into the future. Berne Ferry Berne is the Head of the National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS) in HEE, is an associate fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK and visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University. The NSHCS operates as the national deanery for the training of all scientists in the NHS Nationally where Berne has led on the training and education of the healthcare science (HCS) workforce since 2017. This year, Berne was recognised for her work, including leading the continuation of scientific training during the COVID pandemic, by the award of an honorary fellowship of the Institute of Biomedical Science and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Healthcare Science from NHS England's Office the Chief Scientific Officer. This event is facilitated by Ann Mahon, Professor of Health Leadership and Head of the Health Management Group, Alliance MBS.

At this Vital Topics event we will explore how Covid-19 has created opportunities for change across both central and local government, while our panel will also share their thoughts on the need for deeper resilience building as life gradually returns to normal in the wake of the pandemic. Much has been written over the past two years about how the pandemic will create opportunities for transformative change. But where do we stand today, and is that transformative change really likely to happen? At this Vital Topics event we will look at how Covid-19 has created opportunities for change across both central and local government, while our panel will also share their thoughts on the need for deeper resilience building as life gradually returns to normal in the wake of the pandemic. Our speakers will also explore the need for society to better engage with this agenda and at what decision-makers need to be doing to further embed the recovery among local communities. Chaired by Dr Simos Chari, joining us on our panel will be Duncan Shaw, Professor of Operational Research and Critical Systems at Alliance Manchester Business School, Dr Kathy Oldham OBE, Chief Resilience Officer for Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Andy Wright, former Chief Executive at Braintree District Council and Issa Kassis, the Mayor of Ramallah.

In this episode we will hear from Jan Iceton, Chair of Smart Works Greater Manchester. Smart Works Greater Manchester is a truly inspiring charity that has helped over 3,500 unemployed, disadvantaged and often vulnerable women get back into employment. Their motto is “get the clothes, get the confidence, get the job”.... and 72% of their clients do just that. They bounced back quickly after Covid and now deliver circa 100 appointments a month from their centre in Stockport. Now, at this time of exceptional need, they are working towards opening a new Smart Works in Manchester by April 2023. Aside from Smart Works, Jan supports entrepreneurial SaaS platform businesses as an Investor/NED. Jan's whole career has been in business development with 10 years in large corporate IT (Fujitsu), 10 years BPO in the UK and North America (Vertex) then almost 10 years running her own consultancy / interim business supporting private equity owned companies. In 2015, Jan went "back on the payroll" for 2 years when she joined Utiligroup, a fast growing, highly entrepreneurial SaaS provider to independent UK energy suppliers backed by North Edge Capital (PE). In April 2017 they sold the company to ESG for £100m and in November were recognised by the BVCA (Private Equity) as Best Management Team of the Year (Mid Market). Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

In this episode, Professor Duncan Shaw explores how Covid-19 has created opportunities for change across both central and local government. He also shares his thoughts on the need for deeper resilience building as life gradually returns to normal in the wake of the pandemic.

This episode will be hosted by Javed Siddiqui, Professor of Accounting, Alliance Manchester Business School. Pressures from various donor agencies (such as the World Bank), combined with the pursuit of legitimacy by governments in many developing countries, have resulted in various western accounting and corporate governance mechanisms to be exported to the developing world. Accounting researchers have identified the inherent limits to what (western) governance systems can achieve, especially in certain (non-western) contexts, and have often termed these practices as ‘ritualistic'. Drawing from his personal research journey, Professor Javed Siddiqui will discuss the potential policy implications of such research. For example, given the presence of weak capital markets, where investors do not really appreciate the value of a ‘good' audit, and the reasonable success of various supply chain certification schemes, is there a scope for changing the focus of auditing and governance mechanisms in developing economies (as suggested by the Brydon review)? If so, what is stopping certain forms of change from coming within? Also, given the tendency of governments in developing countries to adopt western governance mechanisms without considering the context, do regulators in western countries need a more cautious approach towards policy development? Javed is a Professor of Accounting at the Alliance Manchester Business School, and the school Director for post-graduate taught (PGT) programmes, responsible for a portfolio of fifteen specialised MSc programmes. Javed joined Manchester Business School as a Lecturer in 2008, and was promoted to a Senior Lecturer in the same school in 2015. His primary fields of research are auditing, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, especially in the context of developing economies. His research has been funded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK. Professor Siddiqui worked with international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Big Four accountancy firms, as well as national level professional accountancy bodies. This event will be facilitated by Christopher Humphrey, Professor of Accounting in the Accounting and Finance division of Alliance Manchester Business School. 

In this episode we will hear from Miki Shika, founder of Ekhaya Empowerment Community Interest Company and an entrepreneur with a passion for childcare, families and integration. Miki qualified as a Montessori directress (teacher) almost two decades ago and in that time has mastered her skills in childcare and community engagement with a specialised focus on children, working on the needs of pre-primary school aged children. She has managed nurseries and currently runs a childcare business. Miki originates from South Africa where her interests in education and child development were spurred. Her community engagement work was born out of her identification amongst displaced groups and her commitment to activism. She founded Ekhaya Empowerment C.I.C, an organisation which works with women and children from communities experiencing a range of social injustices. Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

The Scale-Up Forum is a peer-to-peer network for ambitious scaling up businesses in Greater Manchester. It gives businesses at all stages of the scale up journey the opportunity to share experiences, challenges and lessons learnt for mutual business benefit. Launched in 2018, it provides a platform for businesses in the scale up phase to gain insight from their peers and from academic experts on challenges experienced by business growing at pace, whatever their sector. The Forum is managed and delivered by our Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange team, who help to identify routes for mutually-beneficial collaboration between our academic researchers and business partners. Our quarterly events are all based around themes proposed by the partner firms. Achieving Innovation and incorporating innovation strategies How have large and growing organisations successfully embedded innovation strategies to deliver success? We will hear an academic perspective presenting past research into this area along with a practitioner perspective. As per the usual format the session will encourage interaction and shared learning, starting discussion points include “Should innovation be tasked to specialist teams within a business or is it everyone's responsibility? How should businesses plan their strategy and decision-making process to facilitate innovation?”. Speakers Bruce Tether Bruce Tether is Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy, Associate Head of Research for the Innovation Management and Policy Division, and the Research Director of the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre led by Nesta in London. He teaches innovation management and his research interests centre around three inter-related themes: Innovation and entrepreneurship through creativity and design.The competitive dynamics of professional service firms, especially those oriented to design and creativity, such as architecture practices, design and engineering consultancies.How firms make choices regarding their geographical locations for competitive advantage. Azhar Quaiyoom Azhar is the director and CEO of QSustain, an independent award-winning specialist consultancy to the construction industry offering strategic support across many sectors. Azhar is a highly motivated and charismatic entrepreneur and Engineering professional with 20 years' experience within sustainable design and delivery across different sectors such as mix use, commercial, and in particular, rail, creating first of its kind achievements across complex projects. This is coupled with invaluable experience in practical major programmes with extensive knowledge of the feasibility, design and implementation stages. With this experience, Azhar now runs a successful consultancy that is well placed to expand and diversify. Azhar has a rare and exclusive combination of Engineering design, sustainability and practical project management experience with knowledge of how to implement low carbon and sustainable developments from concept, design, and procurement to construction and operation. The Scale-Up Forum is sponsored by Bruntwood Works

Audit in the UK is in transition, with major reform and increased regulation being planned by the Government and the Financial Reporting Council. This episode with ICEAW Manchester and Alliance MBS will give the business community the opportunity to feedback to the government and to comment on the proposed reforms. This episode will also look to highlight the areas where practising and business accountants and Directors can start to understand how to deal with the changes. There will be ample opportunity for the audience, both present and online, to question the panel and make constructive comments on the proposals. Background In July 2022, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) published a Position Paper setting out the next steps to reform the UK's audit and corporate governance framework. The paper follows the Government Response to the consultation on strengthening the UK's Corporate Governance, Corporate Reporting and Audit systems, including the creation of the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA), to replace the FRC. The document builds on the areas of the Government Response that fall within the FRC's remit, providing advanced clarity for stakeholders on how the work of reform will be delivered ahead of government legislation. That work includes revising existing codes, strengthening auditing and accounting standards, setting expectations to drive behavioural change ahead of statutory powers, and the development of guidance to address issues set out in the Government Response. In particular, the Position Paper sets out proposed changes to the UK Corporate Governance Code. This will provide a stronger framework for reporting on the effectiveness of internal controls and Board responsibilities for expanded sustainability and ESG reporting, and new guidance on enhanced resilience statements and fraud reporting by directors. Speakers Lord Callanan, Under Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Corporate Responsibility Lord Callanan was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 14 February 2020. He was Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union from 27 October 2017 to 31 January 2020. Callanan was a Conservative Councillor on Tyne and Wear County Council between 1983 and 1986 and Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council between 1987 and 1996, and a Member of the European Parliament for the North East England constituency from 1999, re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Callanan was created a Life Peer on 24 September 2014 taking the title Baron Callanan, of Low Fell in the County of Tyne and Wear. He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Transport between June and October 2017. Julia Penny (President, ICAEW) Julia qualified as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant in 1989 having first completed an honours degree in Accountancy and Finance at Brighton Polytechnic. Soon after qualifying she moved into a training role, initially teaching students and later moving into CPD training and technical roles. She specialises in audit, financial reporting and anti-money laundering and has worked for diverse organisations including Wolters Kluwer, Wilmington plc, Chantrey Vellacott and Baker Tilly (now RSM).  Julia became involved with Thames Valley Society of Chartered Accountants early in her career and served first as treasurer and then as the Society President in 2001-2. Later she became chair of the ICAEW Technical Advisory Committee and a member of both the Technical Strategy and Financial Reporting Faculty Boards. Julia has been a Council member since 2013 and an ICAEW Board member since 2017. Julia was Vice-President for the year June 2020 to June 2021. She became ICAEW President and will hold this office from June 2022 to June 2023.

In this Original Thinking podcast we will be joined by John List, Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago, who will be discussing his book 'The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale'. The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale The premise behind the Voltage Effect is deceptively simple: No great idea is guaranteed to succeed. Be it a life-saving medical breakthrough, a new policy initiative, a cutting-edge innovation, or a bold plan for building a better world, translating an idea into widespread impact depends on one thing only: whether it can be replicated at scale. Many college students will graduate into the world with a bold idea they hope to scale – whether by starting a company, through social advocacy or non-profit work, in the private sector, or elsewhere. The book draws on John's years of behavioural science research, as well as examples from the realms of business, education, policymaking, and public health to present a data-driven approach to the science of scaling. In it he outlines the five hurdles that must be overcome for an idea to succeed at scale, as well as four research-based strategies to achieve maximum-impact scaling. Topics include: Best experimental design practices to validate an idea (and reduce the risk of false positives)Navigating the supply-side economics of scalingUsing marginal thinking to assess the viability of an enterprise at scalePreventing the negative externalities that may emerge when an idea is implemented on a large scaleUsing behavioral-economic incentives to spur widespread adoption of an idea or increase compliance with a policy or programHow we can apply the principles of scaling to drive change in our schools, communities, companies, and society at large To order the book or download a preview, visit The Voltage Effect. John A. List is the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on combining field experiments with economic theory to deepen our understanding of the economic science. In the early 1990s, List pioneered field experiments as a methodology for testing behavioural theories and learning about behavioural principles that are shared across different domains. To obtain data for his field experiments, List has made use of several different markets, including charitable fundraising activities, the sports trading card industry, the ride-share industry, and the education sector, to highlight a few. This collective research has lead to collaborative work with several different schools and charities, as well as firms including: Lyft, Uber, United Airlines, Virgin Airlines, Humana, Sears, Kmart, Facebook, Google, General Motors, Tinder, Citadel, Walmart and several non-profits. His research includes over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and several published textbooks. He co-authored the international best seller, The Why Axis, in 2013, before releasing The Voltage Effect in February 2022. List was elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2015. List received the 2010 Kenneth Galbraith Award, the 2008 Arrow Prize for Senior Economists for his research in behavioural economics in the field, and was the 2012 Yrjo Jahnsson Lecture Prize recipient. He is a current Editor of the Journal of Political Economy The episode will be facilitated by Timothy Devinney, Professor and Chair of International Business at Alliance Manchester Business School.

This event is hosted by Yu-Wang Chen, Professor in Decision Sciences and Business Analytics at Alliance Manchester Business School. Knowledge and Data-Driven Decision Making Data-driven decision making is the practice of using data to support decision making, and it becomes more widely recognised with the development of decision science, data science and artificial intelligence. Real-world decision making problems are usually characterised by multiple criteria and associated with uncertainty. Data often come from different sources in different formats. In addition, decision makers' domain knowledge also plays an important role in making informed decisions. In this episode, Yu-wang will introduce his work in this research domain and a number of examples from his own research will be used to highlight how data and knowledge can be aggregated to support decision making in business and management. Yu-wang Chen Prior to joining AMBS, Yu-wang worked briefly as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University. He received the PhD degree in Control and System Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research focuses primarily on Decision Sciences and Data Analytics, including their applications in business analytics, supply chain risk analysis, healthcare decision support, etc. He has published more than 60 research articles in leading journals, such as European Journal of Operational Research, Computers & Operation Research, and more. He has successfully coordinated and taught across a broad portfolio of course units at all different undergraduate and postgraduate levels at AMBS. He currently acts as the Programme Director (2015-2018 & 2020-present) for the MSc Business Analytics programme (2022 QS Ranking: 2nd in the UK & 10th in the world). The episode is facilitated by Richard Allmendinger, Professor and Business Engagement Lead of Alliance Manchester Business School.

Placing health and wellbeing at the heart of organisations makes business sense. Key business priorities such as productivity and staff retention have been shown to improve significantly when employers genuinely care about employee wellbeing. Younger workers today are also placing an ever-higher priority than previous generations on wellbeing over company loyalty, a trend only accentuated by the pandemic. But to create an authentic and sustained culture of wellbeing in an organisation requires a clear definition of what wellbeing is and how to measure it. Metrics need to be simple and easy to understand, drawn from robust data sources, and relevant and credible to a wide range of stakeholders. The National Forum for Health and Wellbeing, based at Alliance Manchester Business School, has been looking at the evidence linking wellbeing and performance, and at the specific information that organisations need in order to select the wellbeing metrics that are right for them. At this special event the Forum will be unveiling its work with members and sharing their own personal experiences of how they have tackled measuring wellbeing in their workplaces. Members will also take part in a live panel debate to discuss these pressing issues. Speakers include Sir Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and co-founder of the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work, and Forum member Dr Richard Heron, Independent Chief Medical Officer and former VP Health for BP, who has been spearheading the metrics initiative.

This event will be hosted by Kieron Flanagan, Professor of Science and Technology Policy at Alliance MBS. What next for UK science and innovation policy? The UK was an industrial and scientific pioneer. Yet for nearly as long, the country has fretted about falling behind industrial and technological competitors. For decades the UK's not terribly impressive R&D/GDP ratio of around 1.7% has resisted all attempts to improve it. For historical reasons, UK government R&D spending is unusually biased towards the ‘basic' end of the spectrum by international standards, and the geographical distribution of that spending is highly concentrated on a small number of institutions in a few places – the so-called ‘Golden Triangle' of Oxford, Cambridge and London. Now the UK is once again aiming to transform its technological fortunes, with increases in public spending in the pipeline and a target of 2.4% of GDP to be spent on R&D by 2027. The hope is that this additional R&D effort will help ‘rebalance' regional growth prospects and drive improvements in productivity. This lecture will examine what progress has been made in this agenda, what its prospects are, and in doing so will draw out some broader questions about why we fund research and what we hope to gain from it. This event will be facilitated by Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Manchester and Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at Alliance Manchester Business School.

This event will be hosted by Tony Venables CBE, Professor of Economics, Alliance Manchester Business School, and Research Director of The Productivity Institute. Why some places are more prosperous Why are regional disparities so persistent? Why do adjustment mechanisms fail, and what should policy do (and not do)? This lecture will review answers to these questions and offer insights based on a new measure of the structure of the UK's local economies. Tony Venables ​Tony is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Econometric Society. Former positions include Chief Economist at the UK Department for International Development, professor at Oxford University and at the London School of Economics, research manager of the trade research group in the World Bank, and advisor to the UK Treasury. He has published extensively in the areas of international trade, spatial economics, and natural resources, including work on trade and imperfect competition, economic integration, multinational firms, and economic geography. The event will be facilitated by Professor Bart van Ark, Professor of Productivity Studies & Director of the Productivity Institute at Alliance MBS.

This month we will hear from Chaido Doulala-Rigby (Yuli), chair of ICE North West - Institution of Civil Engineers. Yuli is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE), a Fellow of the Permanent Way Institution, and a Fellow of the Institution of Royal Engineers. With over 25 years' in Geotechnics, her work experience includes working as a Tunnelling Engineer for Balfour Beatty/AMEC JV at the Jubilee Line Extension Tunnelling project in London (1995), as a Geotechnical Engineer for Mouchel Asia Limited in Hong Kong (1996-2005) and as the Chief Civil Engineer for Tensar International, the inventor of polymeric soil reinforcing and soil stabilising geogrids (2005-present). Yuli is the current (2021-2022) Chair of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) for the Northwest region of the UK, a past Chair (2016-2018) of the UK Committee of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS), an elected member of the British Geotechnical Association (BGA) Executive Committee (2020-2023) and has authored and delivered several publications about reinforced and stabilised soil around the world. She is a regular judge for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Engineering Awards in the NW of the UK, the UK Ground Engineering Awards and she is the coordinator and a judge of the Baroness Platt of Writtle Awards on behalf of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, of which she is a Liveryman and a Court Assistant. She is a registered STEM Ambassador and was a Governor of Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College until it closed in 2021. She is the first female Engineer in the Northwest of the UK to obtain Fellowship of the ICE in September 2011 and the first non-military Engineer, to become a Fellow of the Institution of Royal Engineers (FInstRE) in May 2018. Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

At this Vital Topics event, we are joined by Andy Haldane, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Arts, former Chief Economist at the Bank of England, and Honorary Professor at Alliance Manchester Business School. Andy will be exploring levelling up in this Vital Topics lecture. Levelling up - where next? Published in February 2022, the Levelling Up in the United Kingdom white paper sets out a plan of action to spread opportunities more equally across the UK. In September 2021, RSA Chief Executive Andy Haldane was appointed by the Prime Minister to define and develop the flagship national levelling up strategy – a decade-long moral, social and economic cross-government, cross society programme to spread opportunity and prosperity to all parts of the UK. In this event, Andy Haldane explores how the White Paper's ambitious vision and 12 national levelling up missions can now be made a reality in towns and cities in every part of the UK, by 2030. Andy Haldane During his 30 years at the Bank of England, Andy has become a leading expert on monetary and financial stability as one of Britain's most influential economists and served as a member on the Financial Policy Committee and Monetary Policy Committee. He was Permanent Secretary for Levelling Up at the Cabinet Office from September 2021 to March 2022. He stepped down from this role in 2021 to join the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) as Chief Executive. In addition to his contribution to the Bank of England, Andy has led HM Government's Industrial Strategy Council and in 2009 co-founded Pro Bono Economics, a charity dedicated to using economics to empower the social sector. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2014 and among other positions, is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academy of Social Sciences and Governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. This event is facilitated by Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Manchester and Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at Alliance Manchester Business School. Sponsored by DWF, Vital Topics is Alliance MBS' series of prestigious business lectures, bringing powerful ideas and original thinking to audiences from the Manchester city-region and beyond.

At this Vital Topics event we will be joined by Andy Haldane, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Arts, former Chief Economist at the Bank of England, and Honorary Professor at Alliance Manchester Business School. Andy will be exploring levelling up in this Vital Topics lecture. Levelling up - where next? Published in February 2022, the Levelling Up in the United Kingdom white paper sets out a plan of action to spread opportunity more equally across the UK. In September 2021, RSA Chief Executive Andy Haldane was appointed by the Prime Minister to define and develop the flagship national levelling up strategy – a decade-long moral, social and economic cross-government, cross society programme to spread opportunity and prosperity to all parts of the UK. In this event, Andy Haldane explores how the White Paper's ambitious vision and 12 national levelling up missions can now be made a reality in towns and cities in every part of the UK, by 2030. Andy Haldane During his 30 years at the Bank of England, Andy has become a leading expert on monetary and financial stability as one of Britain's most influential economists and served as a member on the Financial Policy Committee and Monetary Policy Committee. He was Permanent Secretary for Levelling Up at the Cabinet Office from September 2021 to March 2022. He stepped down from this role in 2021 to join the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) as Chief Executive. In addition to his contribution to the Bank of England, Andy has led HM Government's Industrial Strategy Council and in 2009 co-founded Pro Bono Economics, a charity dedicated to using economics to empower the social sector. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2014 and among other positions, is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academy of Social Sciences and Governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. This event will be facilitated by Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Manchester and Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at Alliance Manchester Business School. Sponsored by DWF, Vital Topics is Alliance MBS' series of prestigious business lectures, bringing powerful ideas and original thinking to audiences from the Manchester city-region and beyond.

In this episode, we will hear from Heather Waters, Enterprise Manager, Natwest. With over 20 years B2B experience, Heather is now part of the Women In Business team developing and delivering the strategy to support female entrepreneurs across the U.K. In 2019, the Treasury commissioned Alison Rose, the CEO of NatWest, to lead an independent review of female entrepreneurship. Heather spoke to us last year following the publication of the second annual review, about how she would be working with key national and regional organisations that support female entrepreneurship to start and scale. During this episode, she will give us an update on the findings from this year's Rose Review Progress Report. This episode is hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

At this Vital Topics event we are joined by Marian Sudbury OBE, Director, Regions, Department for International Trade. The event is facilitated by Mario Kafouros, Professor of International Business & Innovation and Head of the Division of People, Management and Organisations, Alliance Manchester Business School. In her lecture Marian explores why governments including the UK government actively support exporting. She will discuss why governments partake in trade deals, and how the UK government is helping businesses to export through trade deals and through export support. Marian Sudbury A Cambridge graduate with an MBA from Manchester Business School, Marian's background as a senior business leader means she brings commercial acumen to the role of Director UK Regions for the Department for International Trade. Marian has worked on behalf of major blue chip companies, charities and government, defining organisational direction and designing and delivering short and long-term commercial strategy. She was made a Board Director in 2001 for planning and then setting up the international division within a Greater Manchester research firm. Subsequently a Senior Vice President in a top 15 research firm she ran a business division conducting research and advice contracts for multinationals such as DuPont, Caterpillar, Mars and Oxfam. She then founded her own lifestyle business which worked for clients in locations ranging from Sakhalin to Birmingham Alabama. After three very successful years of trading she experienced, at a very personal level, the impact of the banking crisis. Her career in advising clients on internationalisation began in Istanbul, where she provided research and advice to help Eveready, Mercedes and Avon Cosmetics understand how to operate in the Turkish market. Since January 2013 she has been working for the Department for International Trade, initially leading Global Operations and the Northern Powerhouse and now as the Director for English Regions, a national role focussed on growing the UK economy by helping high potential businesses learn and grow through doing business overseas and high quality global businesses create wealth by investing in the UK. Marian also sits on the Advisory Board at Alliance Manchester Business School. Sponsored by DWF, Vital Topics is Alliance MBS' series of prestigious business lectures, bringing powerful ideas and original thinking to audiences from the Manchester city-region and beyond.

Our Original Thinking Lecture series showcases some of the world-leading research from colleagues at Alliance MBS. This event is hosted by Sheena Johnson, Professor of Work Psychology and Wellbeing, Alliance Manchester Business School. In this episode, Sheena details her research into health and wellbeing at work. She outlines her early work into occupational differences and wellbeing related outcomes, before detailing her more recent focus on the ageing workforce which formed an impact case for REF2021 and led her to create the ‘Age, Health and Professional Drivers' Network'. She will also talk about her ongoing work in the PROTECT COVID-19 National Core Study where she has investigated the impact of the pandemic on workers and workplaces. Sheena is an Occupational and Chartered Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. She is an active researcher into the topics of stress and health and the ageing workforce. She established the ‘Age, Health and Professional Drivers' Network, comprising transport and logistics firms, unions and industry representatives with an interest in age and health and wellbeing in the transport sector, which builds capacity in the sector to exchange knowledge and best practice. The episode is facilitated by Elinor O'Connor, Professor of Occupational Psychology, Director of Teaching and Learning, and Deputy Head of Alliance Manchester Business School.

Our Original Thinking Podcast series showcases some of the world-leading research from colleagues at Alliance MBS. This event is hosted by Antony Potter, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at Alliance MBS. The electric future: Unravelling how automakers collaborate with suppliers to co-develop electric, hybrid, & hydrogen fuel cell technologies Over the past ten years automakers have invested heavily in the development of new electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Although a large amount of attention has been given to the policy implications of this paradigm shift in the automotive industry, comparatively little research has studied how automakers work collaboratively with their suppliers to co-develop these eco-innovations. Using patent data from the Toyota supply network together with econometric techniques and endogeneity analysis Antony will investigate how the automaker co-develops innovations with different suppliers. His findings unravel the unique way in which the automaker collaborates with external suppliers to develop buyer-supplier innovations, supplier-supplier innovations, supplier innovation triads, and inter-firm knowledge spillovers. Finally, he will discuss the managerial and policy implications of his findings considering the transition to net zero in the automotive industry. Professor Antony Potter is the Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Alliance Manchester Business School (University of Manchester). His research interests focus on Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, and Innovation & NPD. In particular, his research investigates how different operations and SCM practices enable firms to co-develop innovations within global supply networks, especially for electric, hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles. In addition, he undertakes interdisciplinary research into supply chain risk management, supplier disruptions, lean manufacturing (the Toyota Production System), and the evolution of clusters and supply networks. His published articles have appeared in leading international journals including the Journal of Operations Management (a Financial Times top 50 journal), Research Policy (a Financial Times top 50 journal), Journal of Product Innovation Management (Grade 4 journal, ABS list), International Journal of Operations and Production Management (Grade 4 journal, ABS list), Journal of Economic Geography (Grade 4 journal, ABS list), International Journal of Production Economics (Grade 3 journal, ABS list), Regional Studies (Grade 3 journal, ABS list), Production Planning & Control (Grade 3, ABS List), Journal of Cleaner Production, and Trends in Food Science and Technology. He has won a number of international awards for his research, such as the Emerald Literati Award for Excellence: Highly Commended Award (2020), Runner up for IJOPM's 2019 Best Paper Award, the Chris Voss Highly Commended Award (EUROMA, 2013), Chris Voss Best Paper Award (EUROMA, 2012), and the Chan Hahn Best Paper Award Finalist (Academy of Management, 2012). In addition, he won the 2019 Runner Up Prize for the 'Teacher of the Year Award' and the 2022 ‘Researcher of the Year Award' at Alliance Manchester Business School. The event is facilitated by Joao Quariguasi Frota Net, Professor in Operations Management at Alliance MBS.

In this episode, we will hear from Ali Whitefoot, Senior Manager at Deloitte UK. Ali leads organisations to get more value from finance. This can range from working with her clients to re-structure themselves to save costs all the way through to ensuring they are providing the business with insightful information to drive better decisions. She has worked for Deloitte for 10 years and is passionate about developing talent within her organisation, thereby ensuring we can provide the best experience for our clients. This is through both traditional pathways and challenging the organisation to think differently about talent in parallel with making a social impact. Outside work Ali is a relatively new mum of twin boys so is spending most of her trying to juggle family life, work and fitting in some fun for herself! This episode is hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

Our Original Thinking Lecture series showcases some of the world-leading research from colleagues at Alliance MBS. This event is hosted by Michael Hodson, Professor of Cities, Innovation and Society at the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), at the Innovation, Management and Policy (IMP) division, Alliance Manchester Business School. How are digital platforms being mobilised to re-imagine the future of cities, who is doing this, and why? Innovation with urban infrastructure and its social organisation has become a key strategic concern for policymakers and other stakeholders at an urban scale. As a response to a range of pressing contemporary and future challenges facing urban contexts, infrastructural innovation is frequently mobilised in visions of the future of the city that are produced by public authorities, business organisations and NGOs. Yet, visions of infrastructural innovation are not benign, technocratic representations of the future of cities but are media through which the struggle for the future of the city, and the role of infrastructural innovation in this, is played out. This requires critical thinking about the strategic centrality of urban infrastructure to how the future of the city is being re-imagined but also focusing on the politics of possibility in shaping urban infrastructure and the future city. In this event, Mike will construct an argument that provides the first step towards this end by addressing how digital platforms as a form of urban infrastructure are being mobilised in visions of the future of the city, the social interests shaping this, and what the implications of this are. The event is facilitated by Andrew McMeekin, Professor of Innovation in the Sustainable Consumption Institute.

The University of Manchester celebrates women in business by hosting an inspirational event aimed at showcasing the potential of female entrepreneurship and encouraging students to embrace their creativity, spark connections and test out business ideas. Hosted by the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre, this event features a range of insightful talks and workshops to help build your confidence, broaden your networks, and introduce you to new tools that will help you refine and launch a business idea. Starting with our Keynote Speakers Alicia and Nat, founders of The Future Kind Collective, who help companies to grow faster and more sustainably by defining their purpose, designing their culture and growing their impact. You'll hear their experiences, insights, and reflections on how they continually push the limits and drive change. We then listen to a panel of entrepreneurs, who share their experiences of building confidence despite the fear of failure, whether that be as students, entrepreneurs or in our everyday lives. With experience ranging from the fashion industry to agri-tech solutions, to the creative and dance sector, learn how each of our panel members overcame barriers and set expectations in their respective fields. Panellists include: Dr Beenish Siddique - AEH Innovative Hydrogel Tina Rehana - Aim Sky High Academy & The Purpose Agency Danielle King - KIHT Collective Who this event is for: Students who want to build connections and understand more about the entrepreneurial experience. Students who would like to learn more about personal branding, or how to turn their passion into a potential project/business. Budding female entrepreneurs wanting to accelerate their ideas to the next level through powerful concepts and original thinking.

Our Original Thinking Podcast series showcases some of the world-leading research from colleagues at Alliance MBS. This event is hosted by Wing Lam, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Alliance MBS. Does Proactivity Matter at Work? Proactivity continues to be a major research discussion in the field of organisational psychology, with increasing studies on proactive personality, goals, and behaviour appearing in top-tier journals since 2000. Scholars and practitioners agree that being proactive is distinctive and vital now more than it has ever been due to the dynamic nature of work environment. Is proactivity worth viewing as a superpower at work? Professor Wing Lam will address her scholarly trajectory in this research domain and current thinking on proactivity, aiming to make connections with scholars and practitioners that might lead to future collaborations. This event is facilitated by Hongwei He, Chair Professor of Marketing and School Director for Social Responsibility at Alliance Manchester Business School.

The Scale-Up Forum is a peer-to-peer network for ambitious scaling up businesses in Greater Manchester. It gives businesses at all stages of the scale up journey the opportunity to share experiences, challenges and lessons learnt for mutual business benefit. After two years of online-only events we are hosting the first Forum event of 2022 in-person and bigger than ever, all welcome. At our annual review of 2021 in December the most popular theme proposed for an event theme in the 2022 series was workplace wellbeing, particularly how this relates to productivity. Professor Sir Cary Cooper is an internationally renowned author and speaker on the subject and we are delighted to have him deliver a keynote talk as we launch the 2022 Forum event series. Cary is joined by Alexia Roberts, Head of People, Bruntwood, Zak Fenton, Founder of Bloom AI, and Maria Mander , Health & Wellbeing Specialist – Skills For Growth Programme , The Growth Company. Speakers Professor Sir Cary Cooper Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Alliance Manchester Business School, Cary is a world leading expert on workers' health and well-being. He is President of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development in the UK and Co-founder of Robertson Cooper. He co-founded The National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work in 2015, which is focussed on improving workplace wellbeing in the UK and globally Alexia Roberts Bruntwood is a property company specialising in workspace, retail, and leisure destinations in both the commercial and life science/tech/digital sectors across the UK. With over fifteen years of experience, Alexia leads People Services that span across Strategy & Culture, Wellbeing & Engagement, People Operations, People Partnering, Talent Development & Talent Attraction. Zak Fenton Zak has an MSc in Workplace Health & Wellbeing from the University of Nottingham's School of Medicine and specialises in empowering organisations to make smart, data-driven, and evidence-based employee wellbeing and benefits decisions. Maria Mander Maria is a Health & Wellbeing Specialist at The Growth Company. She is a renowned expert and leader in employee wellbeing and provides specialist advice on the Skills For Growth Programme supporting SME's across Greater Manchester to develop a healthy, thriving and productive workforce for business success. For the last 3 years, Maria operated her own company providing Wellbeing Consultancy providing strategic direction to SME's and corporate companies (both private and public sectors) across the UK and globally. Business Engagement & Knowledge Exchange (BEKE) at The University of Manchester The BEKE team supporting business innovation by facilitating collaboration between academic researcher and non-academic partners, finding ways for our academic expertise to address business and societal challenges through co-produced research, consultancy, facilities sharing and knowledge exchange programmes. The Scale Up Forum was launched in 2018 to provide a platform for businesses to share experiences and learn from each other and to gain insights from our experts across a range of academic disciplines. Seed-Funding competition We recognise that early stage work is often the most challenging when trying to establish effective partnerships for research and development, as such we're launching a competition to kick-start projects that could address your business needs. Find out more about the Scale-Up Forum here.

Looking to make new connections and speak with other inspiring and aspiring business people? Brush up on your people skills and join us online for the networking event of the month! Speak to like-minded business women for an amazing online event. Discuss your ideas, share your knowledge and your expertise. Prepare your digital business cards and make new connections in an informal setting. This month we will hear from Dot McCarthy, farmer at Cronkshaw Fold Farm. Dot runs Cronkshaw Fold, a traditional hill farm with a passion for environmentally friendly farming, animal welfare and teaching about the importance of sustainable agriculture. They use sustainable farming practices that promote a healthy environment, care for the countryside, increase local wildlife and preserve traditional rural skills such as dry stone walling, hedge laying, coppicing and companion planting. They are also working hard to raise money to invest in renewable power technologies so we can produce and store energy on site. Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

At this event, we are joined by Dr Emma Fitzgerald and Dr Jenny Rodriguez. Professor Fiona Devine, Head of Alliance MBS, will open the discussion. Dr Emma Fitzgerald Emma is a business leader with a passion for building great teams and bringing innovations to market to address the worlds big challenges. Most recently she was CEO of Puma Energy focused on delivering affordable and sustainable energy solutions to emerging markets in Africa, Central America and Asia. Prior to this she ran gas, water and waste networks for National Grid and Severn Trent in the UK. She also spent many years running Downstream Retail, Lubricants and LPG businesses for Shell around the world. She has served on the boards of plc, privately owned and not for profit organizations in both an Executive and Non Executive Director capacity including Puma Energy, Severn Trent plc, Cookson Group plc, Alent plc, DCC plc & Windsor leadership Trust. She is currently a Non-Executive director of UPM Kymmene, an innovative global paper & biomaterials business, Seplat Energy, an indigenous Nigerian Energy company which is dual listed on the London stock exchange and the Nigerian premium exchange, and Newmont Corporation, the recognised industry leader in the execution of principled environmental, societal and governance practices in gold mining. She is also an Expert Advisor for the World Economic Forum on acceleration of energy transition in developing markets and a Mentor on the climate workstream for the Creative Destruction Lab. Emma holds a DPhil in Surface Chemistry from Balliol College, Oxford University and an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School. Facilitator: Dr Jenny Rodriguez Jenny is Senior Lecturer in Employment Studies at the Human Resource Management, Employment Relations & Law Subject Area Group and member of the Work & Equalities Institute at Alliance Manchester Business School. Prior to joining Manchester, she worked at the Dept of HRM at the University of Strathclyde Business School and at Newcastle University Business School. Dr Rodriguez's research focuses on intersectional inequality in work and organisations, and the interplay between identity, work and regulation. She is particularly interested in the transnational experiences of skilled migrant women. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Academic Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Dr Rodriguez is the Chair of the Equality and Diversity Committee at Alliance Manchester Business School. Between 2019 and 2021, she was Associate Head of Social Responsibility & Civic Engagement in the People, Management and Organizations (PMO) Division at Alliance Manchester Business School. She is also involved in scholar activism as founding member of the Decolonizing Alliance, an international community committed to intellectual and practical collaboration, translation, active solidarity and resistance to tackle intersectional inequalities and neo-colonial power relations faced by people of colour in the Global South and the Global North.

At this event we will be joined by Emma Sheldon, Non-Executive Director and Business Consultant, Kellie Noon, founder of Onno, and Ian King, Business Presenter for Sky News. Emma Sheldon  Over the past 20 years, Emma has built businesses internationally and led cross-functional teams in marketing, sales, operations and research and development. She participated in a management buy-out of a healthcare business in 2015. Emma now works as a coach and consultant, with recent projects including the development of an international commercialisation strategy designed around Internationalising Healthcare. The main sectors in which she operates are healthcare tech, pharmaceuticals, med-tech, AI and digital. She is also a Group Board member of UK India Business Council, and sits on the board of the Growth Company and Future Everything. She has recently been appointed Chair of the charity Odd Arts. Emma achieved her Global Executive MBA from Manchester Business School in 2016 and was awarded her MBE for Services to Exporting in 2018. Emma promotes international trade, digital transformation space technology and investment. Emma has her own consulting and coaching business, focusing on growth, innovation and commercialisation. She is a qualified coach and mentor, working with the SpaceHub to mentor advanced technology businesses. Jyoti Mehan    Jyoti is a highly experienced health care leader, with over 18 years of experience in transforming health care within the UK and combining this with international best practice she is regarded an expert in her field. Currently the CEO of Health Care First, a General Practice at Scale serving over 32,00 patients across 7 sites, she is focusing on transforming and growing the business. An ex-big four consultant with specialist skills in motivating teams to design, deliver and run complex, never-been-done-before programmes of work. Jyoti has a strong track record of developing a pipeline and translating this into revenue streams across strategy consulting and private equity clients. She has a passion for innovation combined with an entrepreneurial spirit and a never-say-no attitude. Kellie Noon  Kellie Noon is the founder of Onno, a UK-based consultancy specialising in global communications and business. Kellie strongly believes in the importance of developing lasting connections through real understanding of local differences and genuine engagement. A linguist and trainer who has worked with organisations across the globe, Kellie works on international business development which includes cross-cultural management and ‘International English' training. Kellie also works as an assessor for the Institute of Translation and Interpreting and regularly supports the charity RefuAid. Ian King  Ian King has been Business Presenter for Sky News since April 2014, during which time he has interviewed two-thirds of the FTSE-100's chief executives, along with countless other leading figures from the world of business, finance and economics. Prior to that, he was Business & City Editor of The Times and, during 25 years as an award-winning financial journalist on national newspapers and television, has also worked for The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday. Prior to becoming a financial journalist, Ian worked as a business analyst for the Midland Bank Group (now HSBC UK) in the City of London for three years. Brought up in Bristol and in Devon, Ian has an honours degree in History from The University of Manchester and a postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism from City, University of London. During his time at Manchester, he took a year out from his studies to serve as the elected Editor of Mancunion, the University of Manchester Students Union newspaper.

At this event we will be joined by Dr Emma Fitzgerald and Dr Jenny Rodriguez. Professor Fiona Devine, Head of Alliance MBS, will open the discussion. Dr Emma Fitzgerald Emma is a business leader with a passion for building great teams and bringing innovations to market to address the worlds big challenges. Most recently she was CEO of Puma Energy focused on delivering affordable and sustainable energy solutions to emerging markets in Africa, Central America and Asia. Prior to this she ran gas, water and waste networks for National Grid and Severn Trent in the UK. She also spent many years running Downstream Retail, Lubricants and LPG businesses for Shell around the world. She has served on the boards of plc, privately owned and not for profit organizations in both an Executive and Non Executive Director capacity including Puma Energy, Severn Trent plc, Cookson Group plc, Alent plc, DCC plc & Windsor leadership Trust. She is currently a Non-Executive director of UPM Kymmene, an innovative global paper & biomaterials business, Seplat Energy, an indigenous Nigerian Energy company which is dual listed on the London stock exchange and the Nigerian premium exchange, and Newmont Corporation, the recognised industry leader in the execution of principled environmental, societal and governance practices in gold mining. She is also an Expert Advisor for the World Economic Forum on acceleration of energy transition in developing markets and a Mentor on the climate workstream for the Creative Destruction Lab. Emma holds a DPhil in Surface Chemistry from Balliol College, Oxford University and an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School. Facilitator: Dr Jenny Rodriguez Jenny is Senior Lecturer in Employment Studies at the Human Resource Management, Employment Relations & Law Subject Area Group and member of the Work & Equalities Institute at Alliance Manchester Business School. Prior to joining Manchester, she worked at the Dept of HRM at the University of Strathclyde Business School and at Newcastle University Business School. Dr Rodriguez's research focuses on intersectional inequality in work and organisations, and the interplay between identity, work and regulation. She is particularly interested in the transnational experiences of skilled migrant women. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Academic Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Dr Rodriguez is the Chair of the Equality and Diversity Committee at Alliance Manchester Business School. Between 2019 and 2021, she was Associate Head of Social Responsibility & Civic Engagement in the People, Management and Organizations (PMO) Division at Alliance Manchester Business School. She is also involved in scholar activism as founding member of the Decolonizing Alliance, an international community committed to intellectual and practical collaboration, translation, active solidarity and resistance to tackle intersectional inequalities and neo-colonial power relations faced by people of colour in the Global South and the Global North.

The gender pay gap in the UK and elsewhere in Europe has remained stubbornly high. The EU is proposing a pay transparency directive to provide new impetus to ensuring equal pay for work of equal value. The UK introduced gender pay gap reporting measures in response to earlier EU recommendations to increase pay transparency; if the UK was still an EU member this proposal for wider pay transparency would be a hot issue in HR. Pay transparency measures are also being adopted outside the EU, for example in some US states, Iceland and Australia. On International Women's Day this session provides a timely opportunity to reflect on the effectiveness of UK gender pay reporting measures, the impact if the EU's proposed new measures were adopted in the UK, and what else should be done to close the gender pay gap. At this event, we will be joined by Professor Jill Rubery, Executive Director of the Work and Equalities Institute at Alliance MBS, Caitlin Schmid, PhD candidate, University of Manchester and Claire-Marie Boggiano, Director & Coach at Lurig Change & Development and an Alliance MBS MBA alumna. Jill Rubery Jill has worked at Manchester since 1989, first at the Manchester School of Management at UMIST and since 2004 in Alliance MBS. She previously worked at the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge University. She is the Executive Director of the Work and Equalities Institute at Alliance MBS. She was previously Deputy Director of Alliance MBS (2007-2013) and head of the People, Management and Organisation Division (2004- 2009). In 2006 she was elected a fellow of the British Academy and an emeritus fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Caitlin Schmid Currently in her final year as a PhD candidate, Caitlin is part of the Gender, Work and Care research network and affiliated with the Work and Equalities Institute. She is researching the construction and policy uses of gender equality indices with a particular interest in measurements of unpaid work. She is also a Research Associate at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London, where she previously collaborated on two research projects – one piloting a UK sub-national gender equality index and the other, funded by the UN Foundation, comparatively assessing the gender pay gap reporting regimes of six countries. Facilitator: Claire-Marie Boggiano Claire-Marie is a business change and development professional. She is a Chartered Engineer and Lecturer in Leadership at the University of Salford Business School. In 2002, Claire-Marie enrolled in an MBA at Alliance MBS and set up her own independent consultancy business, Lurig Ltd – specialising in the Change Management and People Development. She is an Ambassador for Women on Boards and sits on the steering committee of Queen Bee Coaching, which is a Pankhurst Trust service providing free coaching to women in leadership in Greater Manchester. She also hosts the successful monthly Women Leading in Business events series at Alliance MBS.

At this event we will be joined by Sola David-Borha, Chairman Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, Jennifer Rose, Lecturer in Accounting and Finance at Alliance MBS, and Damaris Albarran, Chair of the Advisory Board, AMBS. Sola David-Borha Sola is the Chairman Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc. She is also a Non-Executive Director of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited and Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited. She is an Independent Non-Executive Director of Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company. Sola was the Chief Executive for Africa Regions in Standard Bank Group responsible for the Group's 19 markets in Africa outside South Africa (2017 -2021). She is an Honorary Senior Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and was the winner of the CNBC African Woman of the Year Award 2016. Jennifer Rose Jenni Rose qualified as an Accountant with the ICAEW when working in Audit with KPMG in 2008. From this she went on to teach in the KPMG Learning and Development team and then on to professional accountancy teaching before joining the University of Manchester in 2015. She is now a Senior Lecturer and passionate advocate of empowering independent connected learners. The main focus of her teaching is in auditing, financial reporting and financial statement analysis, as well as on the MBA at the University. She won the teaching excellence award University of Manchester Teacher of the Year in 2020 for her work as BSc Accounting Programme director and in sharing best practice in teaching excellence debriefs. Facilitator: Damaris Alberran Damaris retired from a 30-year career in global corporate banking in 2016. While working for two leading US banks, the Bank of Boston (now part of Bank of America) and the Bank of New York Mellon, she acquired a broad knowledge and experience of the financial markets, an understanding of corporate finance for companies at all stages of their growth and development and skills in Relationship Management, which she now enjoys sharing on some of the Business School's Executive Education programmes. Since retiring, she has focused on working with charities as a volunteer, trustee and Honorary Treasurer. Damaris graduated from the full-time MBA programme at Alliance MBS in 1984 and became Chair of the School's Advisory Board in October 2018.

Businesses are central in enabling global transitions to Net-Zero carbon energy and land-use systems. Business firms will need to innovate and scale new technologies, goods and services, business models and markets that make this new, more sustainable world become a reality. In the process, business incentives, accountabilities, and legitimacy will also be transformed. Institutions matter and they evolve. To meet the Net-Zero challenge, business organisations themselves are needing to change. In this lecture, Frans will review how the scope of business accountability has changed, what this means for notions of performance, how this influences practices of reporting and transparency, and how this feeds through to access to key resources, including capital and talent. Using some examples, Frans will conclude with some suggestions about how these linked business trends related to scope, performance, transparency and resources may unfold in future. This annual Grigor McClelland lecture will be given by Professor Frans Berkhout, Professor of Environment, Society and Climate at King's College London. Frans' presentation will be followed by a panel discussion. Joining Frans will be Professor Frank Geels, Professor Carly McLachlan, Director of Tyndall Manchester and Nkem Marian Igwe, Full-Time MBA Candidate. The discussion will be facilitated by Professor Andy McMeekin, Professor of Innovation at the Sustainable Consumption Institute. This lecture series was introduced in our 50th Anniversary year in 2015 in honour of the School's founding Director, Professor Grigor McClelland. During his twelve years as Director and Professor of Business Administration at Manchester Business School, Grigor shaped management and education for the next generation. He was a strong advocate of the principle that business cannot be divorced from society and that managers should be ethical and socially responsible. Our previous guest speakers for this lecture series, include Co-op Group's CEO Steve Murrells; Sir George Bain, former Chair of the Low Pay Commission which introduced the Minimum Wage in 1998; Craig Bennett, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth; Torsten Bell, Director of the Resolution Foundation, Anna Dixon, Chief Executive of Ageing Better, Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times and Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. All have based the core themes of their lectures on this principle.

This month we hear from Delight Mapasure, CEO and Co-Founder at K'S WORS LTD. Delight Mapasure is an award-winning entrepreneur who successfully created a six-figure food brand from her kitchen table to retail shelves The former Dragon's Den participant co-founded K's Wors Ltd - a multi-award winning eclectic range of South African Boerewors sausages. Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

To avert the catastrophic impact of climate change and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement targets, we need to reduce carbon emissions by 50% this decade, a further 50% the next decade, and be net zero by 2050. However, achieving these targets will be no mean feat. Locking the world down in 2020 achieved only a reduction of about 5-7%. So how can we achieve a radical reduction in carbon emissions without destroying global economies? And how will leaders respond to this challenge, given that decisions made this decade will determine how society and the planet we occupy will shape up for probably 1000s of years to come. We are the first generation to have the indisputable facts at our fingertips that our climate is changing, and the last generation that can do something about it. The leadership responsibility is immense but are companies furnished with the right leadership skills? Companies have the choice now whether they will be on the right or the wrong side of the climate crisis. Which side they choose to be on will determine their future prosperity and will be existential for many. The times where companies could address sustainability by promoting good news stories and implementing ‘less bad' incremental strategies are over. They now need to drive sustainability into the heart of their organisations and recognise that it will be a key determinant of future value creation and risk and resilience strategies. In this podcast, Stuart McLachlan will argue how sustainable performance drives value through the intersect of economic, environmental, and social dimensions and sees superior financial performance on the other side of meaningful purpose. Strategic connections between systems shifts, drivers of change, and geographic materiality with a deep understanding of how clients create value will become the ingredients of sustainable performance. Companies with strong commercial power, but poor sustainability, will be exposed to unacceptable risk. The most sustainable companies will discover sources of strategic advantage in their sustainable practices. After setting out his vision of sustainability, Stuart will have a discussion with Professor Jonatan Pinkse about what it means for a business to become a leader in sustainable performance. Sarah George, senior reporter at sustainability trade title edie, will facilitate the discussion. Sponsored by DWF, Vital Topics is Alliance MBS' series of prestigious business lectures, bringing powerful ideas and original thinking to audiences from the Manchester city-region and beyond.

In this episode, Felicity talks about the evolution of behavioural insights from a phrase coined by a small government team in 2010 to a policy approach that touches the lives of millions of people around the world. She also discusses her current areas of focus and where behavioural insights might be used in the next 10 years. This event was facilitated by Liz Richardson, Professor of Public Administration at the University of Manchester.

This month we hear from Amna Abdullatif, councillor for Ardwick, Central Manchester. Amna is a community psychologist who has worked in the voluntary sector for over 15 years, previously leading the work on children and young people for the national domestic abuse charity Women's Aid and currently as assistant director for youth empowerment at the Anne Frank Trust.  She completed her masters in community psychology and has her thesis 'The voices of women in the Arab Spring' published in the Journal of Social Science Education. She has presented her studies and work internationally including in Palestine, Lebanon, Estonia & New Zealand. She has also had a chapter published in The Anthology of Silence which explores cultures of silence around abuse.  She was elected as a local Councillor representing the ward of Ardwick in Central Manchester in 2019 as the first visibly Muslim and Arab heritage woman to be elected in Manchester.  In the summer of 2021, alongside two friends she launched a viral campaign to ban racists from football which was signed by over 1.2 million people and made national and international press as The Three Hijabis. She is currently working to set this up as an organisation that tackles racism and provides the tools to challenge it in our work places and communities. Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

Dr Mark Britnell, Vice Chair and Global Health Expert, KPMG UK, and award-winning author, delivers this year's Teddy Chester lecture, Human: Solving the global workforce crisis in healthcare. By 2030, the world will be short of 18 million health workers – a fifth of the total capacity to care. Mark draws on his work in 80 countries to offer solutions to this growing crisis and presents unique insights on what works, and what doesn't. Reframing the global workforce problem to one of health and national wealth, Mark invites us to refashion this wicked problem in new, adaptive ways in order to enhance productivity and prosperity. Harnessing technology, he asks us to reimagine new models of care and levels of workforce agility whilst always remembering that the kind heart of a human is the essence of care. For 11 years, Mark was Global Head of Healthcare at KPMG International and Global Chair of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare for 3 years. He is one of the foremost global experts on healthcare systems and has a pioneering and inspiring global vision for health in both the developed and developing world. Mark has dedicated his entire professional life to healthcare and has led organisations at local, regional, national and global levels –provider and payer, public and private. Over the past 11 years, he has worked in over 80 countries on circa. 345 occasions, gaining a unique first-hand experience. This annual lecture marks the contribution of Teddy Chester, who was the first professor of social administration at the University of Manchester. From his appointment in the early 1950s, to his retirement in the 1970s he was an influential pioneer in management development, using evidence and research with policy makers, and working with clinical leaders. He was involved in founding and leading the NHS Graduate Training Scheme, and in founding Manchester Business School. Mark will be joined by Charlotte Refsum, Global Healthcare Executive at KPMG, and the event will be facilitated by Naomi Chambers, Professor of Health Management at Alliance Manchester Business School.

This month we will hear from Jennie Johnson MBE, CEO and co-founder, My First Five Years Limited. Authentically passionate about improved outcomes for every child, Jennie's most recent eureka moment in January 2021 led her to founding My First Five Years Ltd, a ground-breaking App to support and empower parents and provide expert knowledge to guide their child(ren) through the unique journey of their first five years. Formerly Founder and CEO of the multi-award winning Kids Allowed, Jennie is renowned for being down to earth and incredibly honest about the highs and lows of juggling motherhood and running award winning businesses. Awarded an MBE for services to Apprenticeships in 2016, she was the first female to be awarded CEO of the Year in 2017 and Businesswoman of the Year in 2019. More details about My First Five Years can be found at https://www.mffy.com/ Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.