Essex Business School Advisory Board

Gwyn Jones (Chair),
Corptec

Gwyn Jones is a businessman whose areas of expertise are Leadership, Strategy, Change and, most of all, Execution. He has applied these in different organisational cultures: as a serial entrepreneur and as a board member of large corporates including Tesco plc, and the Public Sector including the BBC.
He has worked in IT, Media, Retail, Investment and the Public Sector dealing regularly with the Chairmen and CEOs of multinationals, and with UK cabinet Ministers.

Graeme Proudfoot,
Invesco Perpetual

Graeme Proudfoot is Head of the London Office of Invesco, a fund management group which manages some $600 billion worldwide.
A lawyer by background, after a period in private practice he joined Invesco in 1992, serving in a number of law-related roles within the group, including as Company Secretary of Invesco PLC (then a FTSE 100 company) and as General Counsel responsible for the UK and Europe, Asia and South America. In 1999 he moved over onto the business side of the group as Head of Specialist Funds, subsequently becoming head of the company's London office.
Aside from financial services, he has particular expertise in risk and governance issues, having served as a director of companies listed in the UK, Ireland and the US.

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta,
Programme Director, Payments & Cash Management Sales Transformation Programme, HSBC Holdings PLC, HGHQ

Bhaskar is currently a Sales Transformation Programme Director in the area of global transaction banking for HSBC Holdings, as well as being secretary to the bank's global sales governance board. Prior to this he was head of the programme office for global finance change, delivering a multi-billion dollar finance programme which established a global finance function, a people transformation programme, new offshoring centers, and innovative control and process improvements.  
Prior to joining HSBC, he was a Head of Strategy and Change at ABN AMRO. He has also worked at Salomon Smith Barney (now Citigroup), Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital and several other international banks in trading and risk management roles.   
Bhaskar gained his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1996. He teaches on the ‘Ensuring Employability' series of workshops and also hosts company visits to HSBC's London headquarters in Canary Wharf.

Hanif Lalani,
Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chairman, EasyNet

Hanif spent 17 years working in BT culminating in the post of Chief Executive of BT Global Services, having been previously Group Finance Director.
He now has a portfolio of roles that includes Investment Ambassador to Northern Ireland, a member of the Advisory Board of Morgan Franklin, and a Senior Deals Adviser to several Private Equity companies.
He has a degree in Mathematics, Operations Research and Economics from the University of Essex and he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Philippa Stokes,
Senior HR Business Partner at Rolls Royce

Philippa joined Rolls Royce at Derby in February 2011 as Senior HR Business Partner in the company’s Civil Aerospace business. Prior to this Philippa worked with British Airways, in a variety of HR roles, specialising in employee relations and change management. Latterly she was Head of People and Organisational Effectiveness for BA’s Head Office. Key projects with BA included many organisational restructuring and redesign programmes.
After gaining a BA Hons in Language and Linguistics (French) at the University of Essex, Philippa joined the Post Office in 1987 as a Personnel Graduate Trainee, later specialising in training and development, and internal communications.
She went on to work in various HR roles at the Automobile Association, which was later acquired by energy giant Centrica where Philippa became Group HR Policy Manager. She left Centrica in 2001 to join British Airways.
Philippa is a graduate of Common Purpose (which aims to build leaders in society) and has a Certificate in Employment Law. She is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.

David Bickerton,
BP

David Bickerton is Director of Communications at BP plc and has responsibility for internal and external communications including its corporate reporting programme, BP's reputation measurement, its extensive online presence and communications to over 90,000 employees globally.
He joined BP from Interbrand, one of the World's leading brand consultancies and has over 25 years experience in the field of brand, advertising and corporate communications working with many of the World's largest brands.
David holds a PhD in Corporate Branding and Reputation.

Neil McArthur,
TalkTalk Technology

Neil holds an engineering degree from the University of Essex and has worked on telecommunications networks for the last 14 years. Neil is a founder of Opal Telecom which was acquired by The Carphone Warehouse Group in 2002 and became its UK Fixed Line division, now called the TalkTalk Group.
After seven years as Managing Director of the technology division, Neil became its Chairman in 2009. TalkTalk Technology operates and develops the Group's Next Generation Network (NGN) and services.
The NGN is an internet protocol (IP) based converged network that supplies voice and broadband services to over 4 million residential customers and 200,000 businesses – and is the largest in the UK.
He is currently advising the Group on innovation and new technologies as well as business opportunities, and is working with Ofcom as a member of the Next Generation Network executive.