Rebecca Homkes is a Director at the Strategic Management Center as well as a Fellow at the London Business School's Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and its Centre for Management Development.  Homkes is a high-growth strategy specialist whose research and consulting work primarily focuses on developing and executing strategies for growth, especially when facing extreme uncertainty, on scaling strategies, and on commercialising corporate innovation.

 

Homkes is the Director and Partner at GrowthX Corporate, part of investment ecosystem GrowthX based in Silicon Valley. She is also a Fellow at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) and directed the joint McKinsey & Co and CEP Global Management Matters project since 2007. She is a member of several advisory boards including the Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate and serves on several commissions relating to productivity, management and competitiveness policies.  Homkes is also the global faculty director of the Active Learning Programme for the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and works with YPO and entrepreneurial companies around the world. She has written for publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Businessweek, Fortune, and Forbes and has co-authored work featured in the Economist and Financial Times.

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A Marshall Scholar, she received her PhD and MSc from the LSE in International Political Economy and previously served as a fellow at the White House's President's Council of Economic Advisors. She has also worked in management and strategy consulting, including with Bain & Co.

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Stephen Bungay is a Director of the Strategic Management Center formerly Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, Stephen teaches on our Strategic Decisions and Translating Strategy into Action programmes.  His first major research project was devoted to strategy execution and he is now working on how to develop strategy in an environment of high uncertainty.

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Before joining Ashridge, Stephen was a partner at The Boston Consulting Group and worked in the London and Munich offices.  He has published two books on military history, The Most Dangerous Enemy - A History of the Battle of Britain, and Alamein. His major business book, The Art of Action, published in 2011, focusses on how to execute strategy and draws on his work as a historian. 

In his consulting work he has helped clients, which range from Shell to the Mercedes F1 team, to embed the principles described in the book.

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He is also in high demand as a conference speaker and has appeared as a historical expert in a number of television programmes.

His website is www.stephenbungay.com

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Jo Whitehead is a Director of the Strategic Management Center, a widely recognised authority on strategy and general management issues within large companies. He teaches on executive strategy courses at Hult International Business School and provides executive education, consulting support and advice to a number of major and mid-sized European companies. Jo has particular consulting and teaching experience with commodity industries, energy businesses and in corporate strategy issues.

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Previously Jo was a Vice President and Director of the Boston Consulting Group, where he worked for 20 years in the UK and US, and as the global marketing and research director for the Energy and Utilities practice area, and Assistant Professor at London Business School.  His books include Think Again, Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions and How to Keep it From Happeining to You. What you Need to Know About Strategy and Strategy at the Corporate Level.  Jo has been a Board member of the Cambridge University Press, is Vice-Chairman and Trustee of Cambridge University Musical Society as well as the founder, ex-captain and current coach of the England over 45’s Touch Rugby team.

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Neil Monnery is a Director of  the Strategic Management Center. Previously he spent 20 years working at the Boston Consulting Group, where he was a Senior Vice President and Director. He led BCG's Consumer and Retail Practice in the UK, and their Corporate Development Practice throughout Europe.

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Between 2004 and 2014 he held a number of positions at WH Smith, including sitting on the Group Executive committee, being Strategy Director, and as Chairman of Smiths News plc. He was a NED and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee at Dairy Crest.

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He is the author of the books “Safe as Houses? A historical analysis of house prices” and “Architect of Prosperity: Sir John Cowperthwaite and the Making of Hong Kong” which won the 2018 Axiom Gold Award for best business biography.

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Neil has an MA from Exeter College, Oxford and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and a Harkness Fellow.

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Andrew Campbell is a Director of the Strategic Management Center previously, Ashridge Strategic Management Centre since it was formed in 1987 to research issues concerned with the management of multi-business companies. Andrew directs research projects, runs management programmes and advises client companies. He is programme director of Advanced Organisation Design and Designing Operating Models. Previously, Andrew developed and led three of Ashridge's strategy programmes: Group Level Strategy, Strategic Decisions and Strategy & Finance. Andrew also has a blog on the topic of operating models.

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Before joining Ashridge, Andrew was a Fellow of the Centre for Business Strategy at London Business School. Before that, he spent six years with McKinsey & Co in Los Angeles and London.

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Andrew has authored ten books based on his research, including the Strategy for the Corporate Level (2014) and Operating Model Canvas (2017), and has also published ten articles in the Harvard Business Review and numerous pieces in other journals and publications. Andrew’s full list of publications can be viewed here.     

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Andrew was educated at Eton College and Edinburgh University where he graduated with a first in Economics and Statistics.  He is also a Baker Scholar and Harkness Fellow from the Harvard Business School.

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Marcus Alexander is a Fellow of the Strategic Management Center. His research and teaching interests focus on corporate-level strategy, the links between strategy and organisational design, M&A and the use of strategic sourcing. He is a co-author of the ASMC books Strategy for the Corporate Level, and Corporate-Level Strategy, and has been a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and other management publications.

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Before joining SMC (previously Ashridge), Marcus worked in investment banking and in strategy consulting at the Boston Consulting Group in several countries. He also set up and sold his own company. He has been a Non-Executive Director of several companies and currently serves on boards in three countries, including a Private Equity Firm and a social media start-up. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, an Associate Fellow of Oxford University and a Visiting Professor at the Vlerick Business School in Belgium.

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Marcus holds an MA with Congratulatory Double First-class honours from Christ Church, Oxford, and an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School, where he was a Harkness Fellow, Wolfe Award winner, Loeb Rhodes Fellow and the Ford Scholar.

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David Smith is an independent lecturer and business consultant and is an associate of the Strategic Management Center.  He is an authority on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and corporate investment decision-making and has undertaken many training and consulting assignments in these areas.  He lectures at leading Business Schools and has run successful tailored seminars worldwide for clients from a variety of industries and also on an open basis for over twenty years.

 

David’s specialist subject area is mergers and acquisitions and the ways in which success can be achieved through careful analysis and improved process.  He has influenced and changed client thinking and planning in radical ways around their own merger and acquisition activity.  Through contacts made during his teaching activities, David has undertaken many practical consulting assignments to help clients with their acquisitions.

 

In addition to designing and delivering tailored programs for clients, David undertakes keynote-speaking engagements to larger groups, often drawn from professional bodies, covering leading edge thinking in his chosen areas of expertise.  He has an ability to communicate difficult subject matter to non-specialist audiences with ease and effectiveness.  His courses score consistently well with participants on both content and delivery.

 

Previously, David was a director of MDA, a management development and education consultancy, and headed their corporate finance division.  Prior to that, he worked with the Royal Dutch Shell group as a senior manager having responsibility for advising on all significant mergers and acquisitions undertaken within the group on a worldwide basis.  Based both overseas and in the UK, he also developed extensive hands-on experience of evaluating major investment decisions.  David always brings his practical managerial experience to bear when designing and delivering his management development programs.

  

David co-authored the book ‘Smarter Acquisitions’ published by the Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

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Michael Goold was a founding Director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre. His research and consulting interests and expertise are concerned with corporate strategy and structure, especially in multi-business companies, and he has worked with a wide range of companies in developing his distinctive views on corporate parenting. Michael has authored several books on management strategy, including: Collaboration Strategy: How to Get What You Want from Employees, Suppliers and Business Partners, Strategy for the Corporate Level: Where to Invest, What to Cut Back and How to Grow Organisations with Multiple Divisions, Designing Effective Organizations: How to Create Structured Networks, Strategies and Styles: The Role of the Centre in Managing Diversified Corporations and Corporate-Level Strategy: Creating Value in the Multi-business Company and his articles are published in a range of business journals.

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Before establishing the Centre in 1987, he was a Senior Fellow at the London Business School, where he taught business policy on the master’s programme and on executive programmes.

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Michael has extensive consulting experience with senior management. From 1971 to 1983 he was a member of the Boston Consulting Group, and in 1978 was elected a Vice President and Director of the firm.

 

Michael holds an MA with First Class Honours in PPE and a B.Phil. in Philosophy from Merton College, Oxford, and an MBA with Distinction from the Stanford Business School, California.

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