Training: EPIC – The Faculty

Oliver Fischer, Fellow in Strategy, Leadership and Change
Oliver Fischer is a Fellow in Strategy, Leadership and Change at Saïd Business School and a member of the School’s Organisational Behaviour Group. His expertise is in leadership, HR strategy, talent management, employee engagement, innovation, consumer behaviour and decision-making.

Prior to joining Saïd Business School, Oliver was Director of the international executive education activities of Bertelsmann AG, Europe’s largest media company. He developed, directed and taught programmes on strategy, leadership and innovation. In his role at Bertelsmann, Oliver advised senior executives from all business units, including RTL Group (TV and Radio), Random House (books), Gruner + Jahr (magazines), arvato (services), and Direct Group (book and music clubs). Previously, Oliver also advised Deutsche Welle, an international German public broadcaster, on strategic planning and evaluation.
 
Oliver’s main research interest is in leadership, with a particular focus on theories of charismatic leadership, social identity and the role of communication technology. He also has an interest in consumer behaviour and how this can inform user-centric innovation. Oliver has published in academic and practitioner journals on strategic management development, leadership, employee engagement, employer branding and media psychology. At Oxford, he has designed and directed a range of custom programmes for international clients, including the African Leadership Institute, Bank of China, BAE Systems, China Construction Bank, the Rolls-Royce Chevening programme, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and ThyssenKrupp AG. Oliver also teaches leadership and personality on the Oxford MBA, the Executive MBA and the Diploma in Organisational Leadership.

Oliver holds BA degrees in economics and psychology from the University of Cologne, as well as an MPhil and a PhD in Management from Cambridge, where he was also a Gates Scholar. Oliver was awarded scholarships by the German DAAD, the Cambridge European Trust, ESRC, the Cambridge Gates Trust and Peterhouse College.

Ian Goldin, Director, Oxford Martin School
Professor Ian Goldin is Director of the Oxford Martin School and University Professor of Globalisation and Development. Ian is also a Professorial Fellow at the University’s Balliol College. He is an economist with an international reputation in the field of development and development research.

The Oxford Martin School is a unique research initiative tackling global future challenges. The mission of the Oxford Martin School is to foster innovative thinking, interdisciplinary scholarship and collaborative activity to address the most pressing risks and realise important new opportunities of the 21st Century. The School comprises 33 interdisciplinary research teams whose members are based in over 25 academic departments across Oxford University. It covers the frontiers of physical, medical and biological science as well as climate change and environmental science, the social sciences and the humanities. Under Professor Goldin’s guidance, the School aims to become the leading global centre of research and applied policy analysis on the key challenges of the 21st Century.

Before taking up his position as the School’s first Director in 2006, Ian had been Vice President of the World Bank and the Bank’s Director of Development Policy, leading the formulation of policy for the World Bank Group. He served on the Bank’s executive and other key committees, and was the lead manager on key partnerships, including the UN, where he served on the Chief Executives Board, chaired by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan. Previously, from 1996 to 2001, Ian was Chief Executive and Managing Director of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and adviser to President Nelson Mandela. He accompanied President Mandela on all his major state visits (including to the UK, France, USA and Japan). As CEO, he succeeded in transforming the state Bank to become the leading agent of development in the 14 countries of Southern Africa. During this period, Ian served on several government committees and boards, and was Finance Director for South Africa’s Olympic Bid. Previously, Ian had been Principal Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London and Director of the Programmes on Trade, Agriculture and the Environment at the OECD Development Centre in Paris. He has received wide recognition for his contributions to development and research; he has been knighted by the French Government and nominated Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.

He has published over 14 books, among the most well known of which are his two most recent Globalisation for Development: Meeting New Challenges (Oxford University Press, 2012); and Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped our World and Will Define our Future (Princeton University Press, 2011) and his earlier The Economics of Sustainable Development (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Ian has a BA (Hons) and a BSc from the University of Cape Town, an MSc from the London School of Economics and a MA and Doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Pete Goss, Associate Fellow
Pete Goss is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School. He is a sailor, adventurer and former Royal Marine who has had numerous seafaring adventures. Always leading from the front, Pete is recognised as someone who can put teams together and make things happen, sometimes against seemingly impossible odds.

It is from these experiences that Pete draws when he gives inspiratioinal and motivating talks around the globe. He lectures at Saïd Business School – and at other business schools – helping individuals and organisations reach their true potential.

Pete has a record of competitive excellence that includes seven transatlantic and two round-the-world races, the most recognised being the 1996/7 Vendée Globe non-stop single-handed round-the-world yacht race in his Open 50 yacht Aqua Quorum. This race included the dramatic rescue of fellow competitor Raphael Dinelli, for which Pete has been awarded the MBE by HM The Queen and the Légion d’Honneur by the President of France. One of his largest projects was to gather together the team and sponsors that enabled the construction of the world-famous giant catamaran Team Philips  –  a five-year-long project that ended with the sad loss of the boat, but thankfully not the crew, in a freak mid-Atlantic storm in December 2000. An entry in the 2010 Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic ‘Route du Rhum’ aboard a brand new Class 40 racing yacht, as well as numerous trips to the North Pole, provide further examples of Pete’s seemingly endless capacity for adventure. His determination and limitless courage in the face of danger is unsurpassed and has moved people to tackle their own challenges in life. He says: “Life hangs on a very thin thread and the cancer of time is complacency. If you are going to do something, do it now. Tomorrow is too late.”

Pete is a founding Trustee of Cornwall Playing for Success (CPfS), in support of which he competed in the 2006 two-handed Round Britain and Ireland Yacht Race, raising enough money to build a new CPfS centre for youth training. He is the author of the best-selling book about his yachting adventures: Close to the Wind, in which he shares his adventures, thoughts, hardships and philosophy during and throughout the ten years of preparation for the 1996 Vendée Globe and other projects.

Peter Hanke, Associate Fellow
Peter Hanke is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School. He is an Associate of the Centre for Art and Leadership at the Copenhagen Business School and Visiting Professor at IEDC, Bled School of Management. An experienced classical music conductor and performer, Peter is investigating similarities and connections between leadership, organisational innovation and music making. He is a regular lecturer and organiser of workshops in leadership aspects of performance, aesthetics and philosophy.

Peter has delivered sessions on performing leadership on the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme since 2003 and has taught Leadership as a Performing Art for Standard Chartered Bank. He runs artistic workshops, focusing on leadership from the conductor’s point of view, at Harvard Business School, Copenhagen Business School and at IEDC, Bled Business School.

Peter has worked with Voces Copenhagen, Contemporary Opera Denmark and the Danish Radio Choir, the latter as choirmaster. He has also been a producer for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and Executive Director of the theatre company, Hotel ProForma, and Head of Events at the Art Museum, Arken; Peter has now established Exart Performances which aims to communicate the experience, knowledge and techniques of performing arts in a leadership context. Peter is also Artistic Director for Bramstrup Performing Arts and a Member of the European Cultural Parliament. He received the Einar Hansens Research Award in 2005.

Peter’s book Performance & Lederskab is being translated into English as Performance and Leadership, to be published in 2011.

Peter has a degree in conducting from the Royal Danish Academy of Music and has completed studies in Musicology and Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen.

Loizos Heracleous, Associate Fellow
Loizos Heracleous is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School and at Green Templeton College, Oxford. He is Professor of Strategy and Organisation at Warwick Business School. He conducts research and teaching in the areas of strategy and organisation, organisation change and development, corporate governance, and organisational discourse.

Loizos has contributed to the Oxford Advanced Management and Leadership Programme and co-directed the Oxford-HKU Senior Executive Programme. He has acted as programme director and delivered sessions on strategy and change leadership for custom programmes for a range of clients, including the Bank of China, Standard Bank, MAN, Total and O2, the latter in both the UK and Asia. He has programme directed the Entrepreneur Development Programme and contributed to the Saudi Oxford Programme for Education Leaders. Loizos received several teaching excellence awards for his MBA teaching; and is an experienced executive development practitioner with 15 years’ experience in executive development, having worked with senior executives of blue-chip organisations including Rolls Royce, IBM, Tata, Total, Credit Suisse, Kingfisher Airlines, KPMG, YWCA, Singapore Institute of Directors and Singapore Police Force. Loizos’ work spans programme design, programme direction, and session delivery with the mix depending on client needs.

Several areas of his research have been featured in the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, as well as other applied publications such as the Journal of Business Strategy, Business Strategy Review and Long Range Planning. Loizos has authored or co-authored six books: Strategy and Organization: Realizing Strategic Management (2003), Discourse, Interpretation, Organization (2006); Flying high in a competitive industry: Secrets of the world’s leading airline (2009); Business Strategy in Asia: Text and Cases (2010), Crafting Strategy: Embodied metaphors in practice (2011) and Practicing Strategy: Text and Cases (forthcoming).

His research has been published in over 50 research papers in prestigious outlets such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, MIS Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Human Relations, and Journal of Applied Behavioural Science. His research has been honored by three Best Paper Awards from the US Academy of Management; in 1999 (on globalisation), 2004 (on organisation development), and 2006 (on corporate governance). His work has also won the award for the Paper with the Best Practical Implications from Emerald, for 2 years running; in 2009 (for his work on linking people with strategy based on his Singapore Airlines research) and in 2010 (for his work on whether business can learn from the public sector). He serves on the editorial boards of leading management journals, including the board of the top empirical scientific management journal in the world, the Academy of Management Journal.

Loizos has a PhD from the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge and an MPhil from Cambridge.

Richard Pascale, Associate Fellow
Richard Pascale is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School. He is a leading business consultant worldwide, a best-selling author and a respected scholar who was listed in the Financial Times Top 50 Management Gurus of All Time. His work focuses on how organisations develop a differentiated strategy and then mobilise the ranks below in its execution.

Richard teaches a workshop on transformation and change (highlighting a method called Positive Deviance) in the School’s Consulting and Coaching for Change programme. He teaches sessions on leadership and strategic transformation in the open enrolment Diploma In Strategy and Innovation programme, and also on Said’s programmes for Standard Chartered Bank and The Bank of China. He has designed and facilitated programmes for the World Economic Forum in Davos, and at their annual event in China. He is a visiting lecturer at Skolkovo Business School in Moscow and at other venues worldwide.

Richard was a member of the faculty of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business for 20 years. He taught the most popular course on organisational survival  in their MBA programme. Richard was a White House Fellow, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Labor and Senior Staff of a White House Task Force. In 2005, he served as advisor in Iraq to US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, work that entailed the transition of the new ambassador into his post as manager of the largest US mission in the world.

Richard consults for a wide range of international clients, including AT&T, BAe Systems, British Petroleum, Ciba Geigy, Coca-Cola, Cummins, Genentech, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Motorola, The New York Times and Royal Dutch/Shell. He has written many articles and books and has conducted extensive research at BP, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Honda, Matsushita, Monsanto, Sears and Shell.

Richard has an MBA and Doctorate from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.

Alan South, Innovation Practitioner
Alan South is an innovation practitioner with over 25 years’ experience of creating business and developing thinking.
 
In the field of executive learning, Alan has delivered innovation modules on executive programmes, lectured at business schools and worked as an advisor to senior executives. This work includes collaboration with Harvard Business School and with McKinsey. He was a pioneer in service innovation and worked with INSEAD to prepare the first business school teaching case on the topic.
 
The foundation for Alan’s innovation thinking and teaching comes from his work as an active practitioner. Until 2007 he led IDEO Europe, delivering the full range of innovation methods in their portfolio. He specialised in clients new to this form of innovation to drive expansion into new business areas. This work has informed much of his communication of innovation principles.
Since 2007, Alan has served as an executive at Solarcentury, a late stage solar start up. The executive team raised $30M from blue chip investors and have subsequently delivered 35% compound growth. He is responsible for maintaining and delivering a five year roadmap, and has received multiple awards including the Queen’s Award for Innovation. His work at Solarcentury informs his thinking on innovation execution.

Alan holds a double masters in Innovation Design Engineering from Imperial College, London and the Royal College of Art, and an engineering degree from the University of Bath.

Marc Ventresca, University Lecturer in Strategy
Marc Ventresca is University Lecturer in Strategy, a Fellow of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is also Research Associate Professor of Global Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication, Stanford University, and Affiliated Researcher at University of California Irvine’s Center for Organizations Research and at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. Marc is an organisational and economic sociologist who teaches on strategy, innovation and leadership, with a focus on innovation and on how new markets get built.

At Saïd Business School, Marc teaches on the Oxford High Performance Leadership Programme and the Oxford Management Acceleration Programme. He also teaches on programmes for Standard Chartered Bank, Zurich Insurance and British Energy. He is a core faculty member for the Goldman Sachs 10K Women Entrepreneurs Programme in the Oxford-Zhejiang University collaboration in Hangzhou and the Oxford-SWUFE collaboration in Chengdu, both in China. He provides executive education and consulting in strategy, leadership and innovation for a wide range of firms, public agencies and civil society organisations around the world.

With a BA in political science from Stanford University, Marc worked at the US Congressional Budget Office before returning to Stanford as a post-graduate. He served on faculty at the Kellogg School of Management and Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, for nine years. He has held faculty roles at the Naval Postgraduate School, University of Illinois, Stanford University School of Engineering (Center for Work, Technology and Organizations), the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, the University of California at Irvine and the Copenhagen Business School. He has received awards for teaching excellence from Oxford, the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and the Copenhagen Business School. He is an advisor to five startup companies founded by recent Oxford alumni, on the Advisory Board for the ‘Inspiring Women in Leadership and Learning’ initiative at Oxford and for Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford.

Marc’s research investigates industry emergence, governance innovations and entrepreneurial activity in knowledge-intensive industries. He has done work on diffusion of innovations and organisational change in higher education. He has editorial board roles for the Academy of Management, American Sociological Association and the European Group for Organization Studies. He is a regular reviewer for the US National Science Foundation and the Oxford University Press.

Marc earned the PhD in organisational and economic sociology at Stanford University and held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford.