With a career spanning banking, travel & tourism, speciality chemicals, the food & drink industry, academia and not for profit sectors, Adrian offers a breadth of strategic leadership and international business development.

Adrian holds an MBA from one of the world’s Top 5 business schools, IESE in Barcelona. Fluent in Spanish after living in Spain for 12 years, he has 30 years’ international experience. During this time, he has gained both private, public and third sector experience, with executive and consulting roles - including one-year with the World Bank.

Adrian has served on the board of RCI Europe Ltd covering the EMEA&I region (£100m turnover) and also as Chair of Scott Bader Commonwealth, the charitable holding company of a £230m / 700-employee-owned multinational speciality chemicals business.

This complements his experience with small & medium enterprises, as a mentor, advisor and as an entrepreneur. He is chair of two children-focused charities. He is a podcaster and hosts a weekly radio show called ‘Open4Business’. His experience, communication skills, open and strategic mind allow him to engage easily with students and executives and thus facilitate understanding of complex issues in both the classroom and boardroom alike.

Responsibilities

Adrian is an Associate Professor (Strategy & Society) at the University of Northampton. He is the Deputy Director of the University’s China & Emerging Economies Centre (CEEC) and is also the Outreach Lead for the University’s Centre for Sustainable Business Practices (CSBP).

Adrian  is now an external examiner at Buckingham University, and previously acted as an external for the Institute of Chartered Secretaries & Administrators (ICSA, now The Governance Institute) - for whom he co-authored a textbook entitled ‘Strategy in Practice’.

Honours, Awards & Appointments

In 2017 Adrian was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Northamptonshire for services to business and charity. He was made a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in 2010. In 2021 he was appointed a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability (FICRS). In 2022 he was appointed to the Membership Council of the fast-growing & influential Employee Ownership Association, and was invited to join the Institute of Director (IOD) National Sustainability Task Force and admitted to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), a network of entrepreneurs, educators and innovators working to advance society, the economy and the environment by finding practical solutions to social challenges.

* CSR, ESG, Sustainability

* Social Value & Impact Measurement

* Collective Impact & Cross-Sector Social Partnerships 

Adrian’s research interests are in the area of CSR & ESG and the creation and measurement of social value and ‘collective impact’ as a driver of innovation - in which the public-private-academic-social sectors work together for the long-term sustainability and prosperity for the community.

Adrian is a trained B Leader for B Corp accreditation and advises companies on their CSR-ESG strategies, measurement and reporting. He has undertaken research in this area with Grant Thornton and is now working on the social impact of the employee-owned sector.

* Strategy & International Business

* Cross-cultural Management & Leadership

* Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), ESG & Sustainability

* IOD, FSB, Chamber of Commerce, BIDs

* Silverstone Technology Cluster

* Employee Ownership Association