Emeritus Professor
Roles and Responsibilities
Prior to retiring and taking up his Emeritus Professorial position in September 2022, Ian had been Dean of three leading business schools: in an in interim capacity at his alma mater at The Australian National University's College of Business and Economics (2017); at the University of Edinburgh Business School (2012-2016); and at Newcastle (2008-2012).
Background
Ian is Emeritus Professor of Strategy, having retired in September 2022. He was the Dean of the Business School at Edinburgh from 2012-16 and Professor of Strategy in the School (2012-2022). Prior to that he was Director of Newcastle University Business School (2008-12) and Chair in Strategic Management at Lancaster University Management School (2001-08). He has also held positions at Durham, Glasgow and Manchester, and was an internal strategy consultant at Tesco PLC (1985-92).
Ian led Edinburgh's Business School to 'Triple Accreditation' (AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA) and has considerable experience of conducting EQUIS business school accreditations around the world. He is also a mentor for AACSB. He was previously a member of the Executive of the Association of Business Schools and was on the Executive of the British Academy of Management.
He is a graduate of The Australian National University (PhD, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 1984) and the University of Wales, a Senior Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM), an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS), and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).
Research Interests
Ian's expertise stems from a research focus on management teams, investigating the discursive leadership skills of senior managers, with the aim of improving their understanding of, and influence through, language skills. He has undertaken major research and consultancy projects with a number of multinational companies and collaborated with linguist Professor Ruth Wodak (Lancaster), Dr Winston Kwon (Edinburgh), and Professor Eero Vaara (University of Oxford).
He has been Principal Investigator on a number of Research Council Grants (over £1.2m) funded by EPSRC, ESRC, and the EPSRC/ESRC-funded Advanced Institute of Management Research initiative (AIM).