• Personal Signature: I'm a distinguished Knowledge Exchange (KE) academic, recognised for my innovative approach to developing industry-aware academics, and funded interventions for business. My career has involved shaping KE infrastructure, practice, and policy. I'm renowned internationally within business and academia for my talent in forging strong relationships across sectors and disciplines, driving impactful collaborations.

• Research Leadership and Income: I have won 12 externally funded research and KE projects (five as PI) totalling £5.8million, generating £4m net income. As an international leader and Small Business Charter (SBC) board member I worked as part of a team of 11 with then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP to secure £230m to fund CPD training for SMEs. Today, 11k SMEs have completed the training, with evaluative analysis from Ipsos confirming it as the most impactful intervention to support business growth.

• Internationally Recognised Expert: I hold expert appointment positions on all the leading professional bodies in the international KE arena – SBC, PraxisAuril, National Centre for University and Business (NCUB), Open North Foundation and KEVRI – where I have directly expanded provision for KE practices within social sciences.

• Research Impact: I have directly contributed to REF assessments and an impact case study (2014) rated 3*. In partnership with Sage I have contributed to government policy in absorptive capacity.

• Driving Innovation: I am dedicated to fostering a thriving KE environment at Northumbria, implementing targeted training initiatives and inspiring a new generation of industry-aware academics. My award-winning podcast, reaches 7,000+ monthly listeners in 53 countries, translating research into practical applications.

Key Achievements

Learning and Teaching

• I have led the expansion and development of the second largest undergraduate programme within the Faculty of Business and Law, BA (Hons) Business with Marketing Management. This programme contains over 400 students studying between levels 4-6 and I was responsible for redesigning the employability and work-based learning components within this programme. As part of this role and in order to enhance levels of academic support I solely designed and implemented the Marketing Internship Programme, across all levels. The specific purpose of the programme is to allow undergraduate students to partner with local SMEs and secure first-hand experience of working in the marketing field. The Marketing Internship Programme has secured regional success and recognition with over 240 students being placed in N=157 of the SMEs.
• I mentor staff towards securing their HEA (Higher Education Academy) teaching qualification.
• I was nominated to take part in a university-wide task group organised by the University Academic Registrar to review the current policy and processes for monitoring student attendance.
• Won Best Lecturer’ in the Northumbria University Student Led Teaching Awards, 2014/15. Nominated finalist in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
• I am member of the Management Board for the national Small Business Charter.
• I am a Director of leading university-collaboration organisation PraxisAuril
• I am a Senior Small Business Charter Assessor evaluating the provision of enterprise education across the UK in partnership with Enterprise Educators.
• I have delivered Learning and Teaching key notes: Working closely with Hannah Squirrel, Director for Markets and Customers at Greggs Plc I solely established the ‘Greggs Marketing Challenge’ at Northumbria University. A regional-based student business competition judged by Roger Whiteside (CEO) and the Greggs Operating Board, monitoring two student groups to win the competition 2016 and 2017, and hosting the event at Newcastle Business School in 2018 and 2019.
• I was chosen by the Faculty Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Learning and Teaching to represent the business school in promoting the NSS campaign.
• I was chosen to represent Northumbria University in writing the North East FinTech Ecosystem Report 2019-2020. The success of this report is feeding into the development of new undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Fintech for open and closed programmes.
• I have had a significant influence on the National Student Survey. I brought about a 10% improvement with an overall satisfaction score of 92% for BA (Hons) Business with Marketing Management. Significant areas of improvement included, ‘Organisation and Management’, ‘The course has been run smoothly’ and ‘Academic Support’.

Knowledge Exchange (totalling £4,510,244 income to date)

• More recently the Marketing Internship Programme has attracted interest from larger clients, namely Sage (UK) Ltd who were interested in collaborating with me in terms of student internships and business research. This relationship has matured and since November 2018 and working in partnership with senior colleagues at Sage (UK) Ltd I established successfully, secured funding for the ‘Making Accountants Digital Enablers’ (MADE) project. This involved completing a piece of contract research in partnership with Sage (UK) Ltd that involved designing a Random Control Trial to investigate whether and how the facilitation of digital adoption in UK SMEs by UK accounting firms increases business productivity. The MADE project is part of the Business Basics Programme positioned within the Dept. of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and funded by InnovateUK. The project targets N=360 accountants and N=1950 of their SMEs customers. This was only one of six non-led trials to be funded and generated £281,120 of enterprise income. 
• Following the successful connections I have developed through the Marketing Internship Programme I initiated and led an application for funding for Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Newcastle-upon-Tyne based charity, The Sports Aid Trust. This 24 month KTP project (REFL 12023) was fully funded through the Economic Social Research Council generating £171,567 of research income. This is the latest of three KTPs I have secured
• Following a two year period working with BEIS and the Small Business Charter I was part of a small team that secured £10.7m from the Treasury to support SMEs productivity, August 2020. This resulted in a training programme for SMEs in leadership and management and generated £600,000 for Northumbria University, supporting over 200 SMEs in the North East and West regions. Round two funding has now been secured creating a further £1.2 per year for the next three years (2021-2024)
• I was part of a team of four who secured £1.9 European Regional Development Funding in August 2021 to provide internship and professional development training to SMEs to help boost business productivity. This involves mentoring businesses and foster collaboration
• Working with my network in China I assembled a short programme that helped Chinese students learn more about British business culture, generating £51,0000 of Continuous Professional Development income.
• Working collaboratively I have completed consultancy with The Marketing Trust worth £9,000 and SportsAid worth £5,941

Research (totalling £22,750 income to date)

• Another development from maintaining strong relationships with North East SMEs has been my work around improving International Student Mobility. I have worked hard to improve opportunities and support for international students who are looking for work-based learning opportunities whilst studying. This involved me partnering with small business employer to discover their discourses relating to international student employability. Consequently, I have successfully published this work in the internationally recognised pedagogy journal, Studies in Higher Education (3*)
• I was invited to deliver a learning and teaching key note speech on establishing work-based learning initiatives (e.g. internships) for international students for Chartered Association of Business Schools at London Met, September 2018; The Society for Research into Higher Education, Nov 18^th London.
• Secured a national profile and reputation for designing and championing work-based learning initiates: delivered strategic workshops at the University of Worchester; University of Wolverhampton; Cardiff Metropolitan University 
• Through leading the activity associated with the Small Business Charter I got the opportunity to contribute to a bid for the Business Basics Programme to be part of a second Random Control Trial. This led to me securing £22,750 of research income.

External Citizenship

• Chairman (5 years) ‘Fertile Ground Limited’ led the application to secure charity status (Registered charity number 1180001) to provide strategic marketing and management advice to grow and expand the charity in secondary education.
• Foundation Governor (3 years) St Roberts of Newminister, Washington.