Creating effective leader-inspired learning, in four dimensions P3

Are you suffering from easy way outosis? P6

Leadership under pressure – how coaching can make a difference P4

ISSUE 6. NOVEMBER 2014

FocusBringing you the insights you need to drive your agenda

Is it worth getting an MBA? How Henley is making a real difference in South Africa P9

The Top 10 best business apps P10

Baroness Dido Harding inspires us all to drive digital growth P5

Datini’s letters demonstrate the ethical questions financiers faced in the 15th century P8

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Welcome to the latest Focus@Henley – giving you the latest business insights

2 www.henley.ac.uk/executiveeducation

Welcome

Henley Business School’s online digest is packed with cutting-edge insights into leadership, management, strategy, HR and coaching, keeping you up to date with the latest learning and development innovations.

In this issue: What are the most effective behaviours of successful leaders? How important is coaching for today’s leadership? How does the UK fare in the digital revolution? Does your HR team live in a box? How can you maximise your organisation’s competitive advantage? And what business apps can you not afford to miss?

Claire Hewitt, Head of Learning Design

+44 (0) 1491 418767 exec@henley.ac.uk

www.henley.ac.uk

Answers to all these questions – and many more – fill the pages of the latest edition of Focus@Henley, as we bring you the latest views and trends from the world of business learning and development.

As ever, all feedback on what you like – and especially what you don’t like – is greatly valued, so do get in touch and

play your part in continuing to make Focus@Henley essential reading.

Thanks for reading Focus@Henley. We look forward to hearing from you.

3Focus@Henley

Latest Research

Creating effective leader-inspired learning, in four dimensions

For organisations to learn and adapt, their employees must

also learn and adapt. And leaders in those organisations play a big part in inspiring the desire to learn – not just for their own direct reports, but across a range of relationships.

In a world of constant change, leaders have to drive the adaptation process, by providing the time and space, by granting the freedom to explore and fail, and by encouraging those around them to look at things in new ways. Yet while we all recognise this, defining what it takes to be an effective learning leader is difficult.

Research jointly carried out by the Henley Forum for Organisational Learning and Knowledge Strategies and the Henley Centre for Engaging Leadership examined the characteristics of a core set of leadership relationships, providing insights to help leaders reflect on their own behaviours in different developmental contexts.

Empowering the learning organisationOne of the most important responsibilities of an effective leader is to create a climate in which people feel comfortable and supported in their efforts to learn and change, and feel enthused to develop knowledge that will be useful both to the organisation and themselves in their careers. But what does effective learning leadership actually look like?

Professor Jane McKenzie

Professor Jane McKenzie, Director of The Henley Forum for Organisational Learning and Knowledge Strategies

Alarmingly, leaders and those they lead struggle to provide a simple answer, but it’s possible to see four distinct types of learning relationships at work in leaders’ interactions with those around them:

For the full article,

So are YOU a learning leader?• Do you address the distinct differences

in ‘follower’ expectations and needs? • Do you moderate your emphasis on

performance so direct reports feel free to learn?

• Do you consciously open doors and create supportive conditions for peers to learn from you?

• Do you ask enough of the right kinds of questions? And do you listen to the feedback?

• Do you create the conditions for others to answer their own questions?

• Do you actively engage in my learning relationships?

• Are people ‘intimidated’ by your position; are you emotionally accessible?

And what more can you do to keep learning at the heart of conversations with peers and direct reports?

Each type of learning relationship calls for different behaviours if the learning process is to be most effective. When coaching a direct report, for instance, a leader needs to take care not to slip into an authoritarian ‘performance management’ mode. Formal authority casts a big shadow, and telling people what to do is a major barrier to learning.

And a leader learning together with a peer has altogether different relationship dynamics. Peers often have expert authority in distinct knowledge domains. To combine their expertise they each need to listen to – and value – each other’s points of view. Combining different perspectives to gain real insight can mean questioning some of the assumptions and knowledge at the heart of their own expertise.

Learning relationships

Grounds for the relationship One-way knowledge sharing and support for learning

Two-way knowledge co-creation for mutual learning

With direct reports from a position of authority and power

With peers from a position of equal influence

1. Manager helping a direct report develop and learn

2. A manager and a direct report develop and learn together

3. A peer helping another peer to learn

4. Two peers with a mutually developmental working relationship

Leader

click here

4 www.henley.ac.uk/executiveeducation

Leadership under pressure – how coaching can make a difference

Coaching Event

Henley Business School’s 10th Anniversary Coaching Conference

entitled ‘Leadership under pressure – how coaching can make a difference’, celebrated a decade of success for the Henley Centre for Coaching and Behavioural Change, and there was hardly a dry eye in the house…

The buzz of anticipation that engulfed the sell-out audience for this event suggested that it was going to be a special day, and they were not disappointed!

Introducing the conference, Founder and Director of the Coaching Centre, Dr Patricia Bossons, proudly reported that in the 10 years since it was launched, over 2,000 students have now completed the Certificate programme, and 200 have embarked on the Masters course.

Speaker presentations: CEOs and Royal Navy Officers are people too!Guest speaker Peter Hutchinson’s tales of the stresses faced by CEOs – and the ill-advised steps often taken by their companies to try to alleviate the situation

– clearly struck a chord with many of those present! But coaching can be an enormous help – for individuals or teams

– replacing stress with positive energy, and it succeeds in exactly the same way we all developed from the reassurance and confidence-building that our mothers used to provide.

Lieutenant Commander Karl Santrian, Officer Commanding, Royal Navy Leadership Academy, reinforced this point as he described his role in developing

For the full article, click here

coaching within the armed forces, noting that: ‘with new aircraft carriers coming in shortly, we need more productivity and better leaders, and we are now fully committed to embedding coaching into our culture.’

and thanked Henley for the privilege of working for the Business School.

A stimulating and inspiring morning finished with a Q&A panel session, and the afternoon session was led by co-founder of the Centre, Professor Alison Hardingham, who facilitated an ‘open space’ session, based on the book, The Wisdom of Crowds, which explores how much a large group of people knows.

Patricia rounded off the day by summarising the Centre’s future plans, including research in cross cultural leadership development and applied neuroscience, and told the Conference of her wish to create a learning repository for coaching development at Henley.

And finally… some of the post-event reaction to the Conference:‘The brilliance of the crowd was inspiring; and the message to have the courage to be human on all levels of life, including as CEO…’

‘Everything was superb! There wasn’t a moment that I didn’t feel fully engaged.’

‘You know that you’ll always be inspired at Henley, but you never quite know how, or by how much.’

Henley’s South African tale, and how coaching is doing its bit to change the worldDean and Director of Henley Business School, South Africa, Jon Foster-Pedley, then described the growth of the Business School in South Africa over the past 24 years, and the recent launch of its first MSc programme, with coaching becoming a major part of everything they do, and how this is bringing diverse communities together.

Jon introduced Henley alumni Sipho Zele and Sean Blandford to the conference; brought up in contrasting cultures, the two men have developed a close bond through their involvement with Henley’s coaching programme and their friendship visibly touched everyone present.

Following on from Sipho’s and Sean’s stories, Nancy Kline, President of Time to Think and author of the bestselling book of the same name, reflected on the theme

Professor Alison Hardingham

Dr Patricia Bossons

Dr Patricia Bossons, Director, Henley Centre for Coaching and Behavioural Change

5Focus@Henley

Baroness Dido Harding inspires us all to drive digital growth

At a recent event hosted by RBS in London, the Deputy Dean of

Henley Business School, Professor Ginny Gibson introduced Baroness Dido Harding, CEO at TalkTalk Group plc, who has recently been appointed as a non-executive director on The Court of The Bank of England, as well as being offered a peerage.

Dido began by giving some background to the UK’s notable digital achievements to date. But despite Britain having an enviable record of success as a leader in the digital economy – with high levels of broadband penetration and, in proportion to GDP, one of the largest internet economies – there are a number of threats on the horizon, and these must be addressed if the country is to maintain its competitive advantage.

For the full article, click here

Baroness Dido Harding, CEO at TalkTalk Group plc

Keynote lecture

The challenge facing small businesses is an especially worrying one, with the emerging markets catching up fast and threatening to overtake the UK in the near future.

Dido advocated the use of both carrot and stick to implement a number of measures, including:• leadership from the top • a real focus from government • moving public services online• community support for the hardest

to reach – with proper investment • setting different targets and

expectations that nudge behaviour change

• employer support for those in work who lack digital skills

• strong competition to drive uptake• innovative new services, such as

YouView

‘It needs strong, brave leadership to drive the move towards digital skills, and that goes for government every bit as much as NGOs and businesses.’

Dido recognised the work done by Mike Bracken, Head of the Government Digital Service (GDS), in delivering public services online, but expressed concern that these innovations are still inaccessible to those excluded or underprivileged members of the community who are still without an online facility.

‘We need to trust our youth, and inspire and support them.

‘Employers have a responsibility to ensure that all their staff are digitally savvy, and by making it happen, we will ensure that even SMEs can succeed internationally, and help balance the books, supporting Britain to be great, to be global, to drive growth. That’s why it’s important.’

Is physical engagement still key? Is access to the internet a universal right? Do politicians set a good example? Should you employ a 19-year-old tomorrow? To see Dido’s answers to these questions and many more, click to see the full report of the event, including the Q&A session and the subsequent audience reaction.

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Are you suffering from easy way outosis?If so, the good news is that it’s very common, and there is a cure…

This latest instalment, adapted from Nick Holley’s tongue-in-cheek guide

to the most prevalent ailments affecting the HR sector, shows how to diagnose and overcome easy way outosis.

What are the symptoms?Identifying the signs of easy way outosis is simple. You’re probably suffering from it if your HR team:

• does HR because it likes people rather than business

• is timid, driven by the need to be liked rather than respected

The HR Doctor

Visiting Professor Nick Holley

Visiting Professor Nick Holley, Director of Henley’s HR Centre of Excellence

www.henley.ac.uk/executiveeducation

• lives for the crumbs of appreciation and recognition that ‘real’ business people sometimes drop from the table

• avoids conflict, never says ‘no’ and never challenges the business

• works with the people who share its passion, rather than those with the power or who have the biggest impact on business results

• is politically naïve, or driven by a higher agenda to make the world a better place, rather than supporting the business.

What impact could it have?HR lives in a box, and is often rolled out only when an HR issue arises. The HR person jumps out and does their stuff, but is then forced back into the box when the agenda moves back to business issues.

Such HR people are popular, because generally they’re really nice, but no one knows quite how they add value.

Sometimes they are marginalised so that important people-related issues aren’t raised and addressed. Occasionally

they’re seen as a nuisance, driving an altruistic agenda that alienates them from the business.

A case studyAt the end of an HR programme in Russia, I asked people to reflect on their personal takeaways: one participant said she realised she’d been speaking to people who shared her passion for HR, but they had no influence on the bottom line. Meanwhile, the real movers and shakers didn’t get HR and if her job was to create value, she had to work with the value creators.

Another organisation that I admire and have worked with talks about ‘HR with attitude’ and encourages HR people to push back in an acceptable way. It’s not just about saying ‘no’, but about helping the line understand the risks and implications of their actions. Indeed the challenge is curing your easy way outosis without suffering an attack of dominance pathology (as featured in the last issue)!

To read the full article, click here

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Edited from a paper by Nick Holley.

Author Nick Holley is joint programme director for Henley’s Advanced HR Business Partner Programme. Nick regularly contributes to articles in the HR press.

While at Henley, Nick has worked with: Agusta Westland, Amey, the Army, BAT, B&Q, Bestseller, BT, Cadbury Schweppes, Canon, Cisco, Danone, Government of Abu Dhabi, GSK, Imperial, Inchcape, Kelly, Kone, KPMG, Mercedes Benz, Microsoft, Ministry of Justice, Nestle, NHS, Oracle, Oxfam, Oxford Instruments, Panasonic, RBS, S3, Sainsbury’s, Shell, Siemens, Smiths, Travelport, TSystems, Unilever, Vodafone, and Willmott Dixon

Business Snippets

Boards need to address competitive advantageBy Professors Andrew and Nada Kakabadse, Henley Business School

Multinational corporations operate across so many different markets that management teams have to be versatile in the way they respond.

Based on our research with leading FTSE companies we have found many boards are significantly disengaged from their companies and struggle to respond to the rapid market changes being driven by globalisation.

A significant barrier to success is that over 80% of board members simply don’t know what the competitive advantage of their firm is. Among top management, 33% lack a shared vision, mission and strategy, and 66% say they know what is wrong with their companies, but are too inhibited to talk openly with boards about problems and solutions.

This leads management to become defensive with their boards, either not giving them important information, or providing inappropriate or inadequate detail to keep them placated. This lack of engagement is damaging companies.

The extent to which board diversity is pursued should be based on business need. Successful companies tend to focus on three key elements: enterprise value, diversity of thinking, and a culture that promotes both mission and engagement.

Directors should be independent enough to raise questions and challenge management decisions, while board diversity must be linked to the company and corporate structure.

For example, EasyJet has adopted more of a portfolio approach to board directorships with individuals representing particular areas of relevance from the airline/travel market to media to deep regional insights of Europe.These individuals offer a collective insight into what gives EasyJet a competitive advantage in its markets.

Board members also need to be interventionists, without crossing the line into interfering – a balancing act that can be hard to achieve. Scenarios to avoid include engaging directors who sit on too many boards, diluting their effectiveness, or directors who are too personally close to the chairperson. The latter can lead to individuals feeling unable to voice dissent or propose unpopular changes when problems or differences of opinion arise.

There is no single formula that will work for every company but, particularly for organisations operating across several global sectors, the way forward is to build board diversity based on the variety already existing in these markets.

Follow on Twitter @HenleyBSchool@

Focus@Henley

What are the cures?A lot of this comes down to developing HR’s political acumen:

• working out who the movers and shakers are, where the power lies and who impacts most on the bottom line

• understanding their agendas; it’s better to listen to their problems, fix them and gain credibility than to be ignored as irrelevant

• running with the grain of management thinking, thus avoiding rejection

• but… HR still needs to be the ‘moral compass’ for the business, and raise important issues

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Datini’s letters demonstrate the ethical questions financiers faced in the 15th Century

W hile modern financial traders are generally glued to an array of

computer screens, 600 years ago they would have pored over a mass of letters and account books with ink-stained fingers, but the same ethical questions were being asked, it seems. Most of the early financial records have now been lost, but the business archive of one successful merchant, Francesco di Marco Datini (the ‘Merchant of Prato’) still survives today, and an ongoing project at Henley’s ICMA Centre is using Datini’s business letters to study the medieval foreign exchange (FX) market.

These letters – a combination of internal instructions, market data and forecasts

Dr Tony K Moore, Research Associate

Latest Research

Dr Tony K Moore

www.henley.ac.uk/executiveeducation

For the full article,

– also shed light on the difficulties of managing an international financial organisation.

Between 1382 and 1410, Datini established and ran a number of companies from Tuscany to Spain. Datini was based in Florence, so he had to appoint agents to run his overseas companies.

Among a long list of complaints to his agents about sloppy business practices, Datini criticised Cristofano di Bartolo, head of the branch in Majorca, for speculating on ostrich feathers, and when another partner tried to save money by not insuring merchandise, Datini warned that, although the ship had arrived safely, ‘you are no prophet – and if some evil had come to her, it would have been the worse for you’.

This reflected the differing incentives of the two parties. The junior partners received a share in any upside profits while Datini had most to lose since he contributed the bulk of the initial capital and held extensive assets that could be seized in bankruptcy. Thus the junior partners were risk-seeking while Datini was more risk-averse.

On occasion, Datini also expressed ethical concerns, especially about the use of certain types of FX transactions to circumvent the usury prohibition on charging interest.

And as well as trying to control their professional operations, Datini also wrote private letters to his agents in which he decried their personal behaviour. His representatives in Spain proved particularly troublesome, and the behaviour of one,

Simone d’Andrea, was particularly shocking. He kept a Moorish slave as his mistress, and she was reputed to run the household, so Datini ordered him to dismiss her and hire a male servant, but to no effect.

On many occasions, the agents’ poor business and personal behaviour led Datini to threaten to disassociate himself from them, but it seems that he never followed through with these threats.

So perhaps the real subtext of Datini’s letters was not: ‘do not conduct such business’, but rather ‘if you get caught, you are on your own’. More pragmatically, Datini and his partners were mutually dependent; they needed his capital, connections and reputation and he could not have conducted his international business without them.

So although history does not provide a simple solution to modern problems, it does reinforce the point that the best compliance policy is toothless if it clashes with the underlying incentives.

click here

9Focus@Henley

Is it worth getting an MBA?The answer is ‘yes’ for many South Africans

It’s often asked: how do you know if someone has an MBA? To which

the answer is: they tell you.

For many the MBA is a lifeline to a better future – but is it really worth investing all that time and money in an MBA in the 21st century?

JFP: For some people it’s undoubtedly about getting ‘the badge’, but whether or not it’s worth getting depends on what you want to achieve.

But at the better business schools, it’s about developing skills that help us build better businesses, and here, to help us build a better Africa.

CS: Unfortunately, some people think that just because they’ve completed their MBA, they can just walk into a six-figure salary position, but you’ve still got to use the attitude, skills and learning that you’ve acquired to market yourself, and show that you are the candidate they want. It’s not just going to fall into your lap.

BW: If you treat it as just a badge, you are doomed to failure. There are many MBA graduates who have gone into top jobs but failed because they may be good at the academic stuff, but they fell short when it came to the real work.

CS: Exactly, but it’s interesting that there’s been a huge shift towards people who are taking their MBA with a view to becoming an entrepreneur, and our research in 2013 showed that 54% of MBA students had this ambition.

JFP: Growth these days comes from our own intellectual capital, our own creative

Jon Foster-Pedley, Dean, Henley Business School, South Africa

Henley SA Update

Jon Foster-Pedley

To watch the full video interview

thinking, so for us to deliver value, we have to show people how to become imaginative, not just analytical. The creative industries are growing six times faster than the average, so we have to stimulate those… and it’s more fun! So we now have an MBA for the Music and Creative Industries.

A good MBA makes you argue and challenge, and make complicated decisions in difficult situations. A good MBA is applied and assignment driven, rather than purely academic, so they’ve already practised before they graduate. A classic MBA is purely academic.

JFP: I completely agree with Colette, and one of the things we’ve introduced is a flexible, family-friendly MBA, which involves the partners from the start. We don’t want to be a machine that turns out ruthless Type A leaders, but people who can create organisations of human beings.

People can’t think creatively if they are under stress.

BW: There will be an economic impact, and it has to be paid for, whether it leads to professional advancement or a more fulfilling life. How can we achieve the balance?

JFP: Often an MBA is a turning point in people’s lives. Some people judge it on how much more they earn, but we also see it in terms of allowing people to release their capabilities and giving them the courage and confidence to learn in different ways.

Good business schools drive people to want to learn, learn to grow.

CS: And to add to that, MBAs are for any person of any age who has the self-awareness and courage to develop in the areas that they are lacking. That’s the kind of person I would hire.

This is an interpretative report of the discussion rather than a verbatim transcript from the video.

In a recent TV interview with Bruce Whitfield, the Dean of Henley South Africa and Colette Symanowitz tell of the impact MBAs are having.

click here

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3. Cisco WebEx MeetingsThe Cisco WebEx Meetings app lets you have meetings wherever you are. What distinguishes WebEx from other video conferencing services is that files can be attached to a meeting space. This means that you can pitch a presentation or discuss numbers from an Excel spreadsheet in real time while video-chatting with your contacts.

4. Evernote HelloWhenever you get business cards from a conference scan them with Evernote Hello to instantly capture the information to an easily searchable format – and it’s free!

5. TripItIf you travel a lot, then TripIt is a must-have app that makes it easier to organise and share travel itineraries, especially for people that travel every week.

6. DropboxWant to automatically have your files synced as you edit them? Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud storage companies, offering 2GB of storage for free. Use Dropbox every single day to sync your documents.

Listmania

The top 10 best business apps

Always on the lookout for useful or impressive apps to help you

at work? Well Amit Chowdhry has compiled the best of the best to help you sort the wheat from the chaff… so here is a list of ten business apps that Amit highly recommends.

1. Microsoft Office Mobile Microsoft Office Mobile is for Office 365 subscribers and simply makes the process of creating and editing documents more convenient by syncing multiple devices via the cloud. Access, view and edit your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents while on the go. Cloud sharing works through OneDrive, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint.

2. Square Register Square Register enables users to manage a business from anywhere by accepting credit cards using a free card reader, for a 2.75% cut for all major credit cards without merchant accounts or hidden fees. And on the iPad version of the Square Register app, the user interface looks like a traditional cash register. Created by the founder of Twitter, Square currently has 600 employees has recently been valued at $6bn. (Please note that Square Register is currently only available in North America; similar UK services include iZettle, Intuit Pay and payleven. For a guide to UK merchant services, visit: www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/getting_started)

7. Mint Personal Finance Track all of your spending habits in a single dashboard, including your bank, credit, loans, mortgages and retirement budgets. The Mint Personal Finance app also tells you how to save money.

8. EvernoteOne of the most essential apps to keep you organised across all of your devices, users can store notes, photos, to-do lists, ideas and voice reminders, and they are all completely searchable.

9. OpenTable UKOpenTable UK makes it possible to book a table at thousands of restaurants. Lots of business deals take place over breakfast, lunch and dinner, so be prepared!

10. BillMinderEvery business has some recurring expenses and BillMinder helps you track these expenses through the use of reports and comprehensive graphs.

Adapted from an article by Amit Chowdhry.

www.henley.ac.uk/executiveeducation

The full article can be viewed at www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2013/09/16/best-business-apps-to-download.

11Focus@Henley

Profile

Professor Adrian Bell Associate Dean (International) and Head of Henley’s ICMA Centre

As Associate Dean (International) and Head of Henley’s ICMA

Centre, which specialises in finance and capital markets, Professor Adrian Bell’s passion for the history of finance is deeply rooted.

Adrian grew up in Ulverston in the Lake District, which he jokes is not just famous because of his connection to it, but because it was also the birthplace of Stan Laurel, one half of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. However, it was not the cinema that captured Adrian’s early imagination, as he only recalls harbouring ambitions to be a footballer.

Along with his sister, Adrian was the first generation of his family to go to university – but while he says he enjoyed his time studying history at Hull, he maintains that the best part about it was meeting his girlfriend there.

Even once he graduated, Adrian had no real plan – as football clearly wasn’t a realistic option – and went on to take a Masters in Medieval Studies at the University of Reading, and subsequently his PhD. It was during the course of his doctoral studies that the International Securities Market Association (ISMA) Centre – which subsequently evolved into the ICMA Centre – opened at Reading, and he found himself employed as a programme administrator, which, as he says, involved ‘doing a bit of everything’.

Adrian’s research originally focused upon the careers of soldiers serving the English crown in the Hundred Years War. He was subsequently involved in a project funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council that resulted in the creation of an online database containing 250,000 service records (see www.medievalsoldier.org to access this free database and find out if your ancestors served at Agincourt!)

So how did this lead to the history of finance? Adrian explains that the source material for his research (mainly muster rolls presented to the government in order to audit for paid military service) and the account books and contracts used in subsequent projects are all located in the records of the medieval Exchequer. Adrian and a colleague, Professor Chris Brooks, had the idea, which was fairly unique at the time, to combine their respective individual skills as historian and finance academic to investigate financial questions from medieval Europe. Their method, which allows techniques from modern finance to be carefully and – most importantly – contextually applied to medieval source materials, has led to a number of major research grant awards from the Economic & Social Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust.

They have now produced a body of published work that has: identified and analysed a large volume of forward contracts for wool in 13th century England; looked at sovereign borrowing between English kings and Italian merchants – and highlighted a ‘credit crunch’ in 1294; and they are currently focusing on the foreign exchange market throughout medieval Europe. This has demonstrated that financial markets were remarkably well functioning over 700 years ago and that many of our ‘sophisticated’ techniques from modern finance were well known and practised

without the aid of calculators or computer programming.

Adrian was appointed to a Personal Chair in 2010, and subsequently to Head of Postgraduate Pre-Experience Programmes, then Head of ICMA Centre, and most recently Associate Dean. Although his ambitions to be a footballer have been thwarted, he has now managed to at least establish a reputation researching football finance and with colleagues has worked out how to identify the right time to sack a football manager.

Outside of work, Adrian enjoys travelling, thus his interest in the Internationalisation brief at Henley! He goes running too, but he doesn’t like it. In his words, it’s ‘just to keep my girlfriend company’.

So what is it about Henley and the ICMA Centre that he enjoys most, and what is he most proud of?

‘It’s a great environment here, with enthusiastic academics who deliver excellent research-led teaching and a dedicated professional team providing student-centred programme support. Henley is genuinely different in that it really does try to treat students as individuals, which has been recognised by a top spot in the Guardian University Guide 2015.

‘The dealing room simulations that form part of our programmes mean that our students are as prepared as they can be for life in the workplace; they understand finance in both an academic and a practical sense.

‘And what am I most proud of? It’s 20 years since a small group of us started the ICMA Centre in one room, it’s hugely gratifying to have seen it grow to where we are now, and to have helped hundreds of students to reach their potential.’

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For more about Adrian’s academic career click here

Focus@Henley