The Entrepreneurial Edge

Rupert Merson is a leading authority on owner-managed entrepreneurial businesses and theproblems they confront as they seek to grow. He has worked as a consultant and facilitator for clients on a broad range of issues including formation, governance, strategy, ownership, remuneration, succession, turnaround and organisation development.

As an advisor, Rupert was a partner in BDO Stoy Hayward in London from 1993 to 2009. He now leads his own firm of advisers.He has completed assignments for businesses in the UK, South East Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East and worked extensively with entrepreneurs, family businesses and professional partnerships.

As Adjunct Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Rupert currently teaches a range of MBA electives on owner management at LBS, and frequently teaches on executive education programmes on strategy and organisational development. Rupert was awarded the Best Teacher Award by the MBA class of 2015 at LBS.  In the same year he was also awarded the prize for the best elective at INSEAD.

Rupert has published a series of books on key management roles in the growing business, has co-authored a book on family businesses and writes frequently in the national press on related topics. His most recent book, Growing a Business: Strategies for Leaders and Entrepreneurs, was published by The Economist in 2015.  He has spoken at conferences in Europe, America and Australasia.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, the Royal Society for the Encouragements of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. A first-class honours graduate and university prize-winner from Oxford University, he also holds a certificate in general management from Harvard Business School. Rupert Merson is also non-executive director of Wardour Communications Ltd and Dahabshiil Transfer Services Ltd. In his spare time Rupert is a musician, conducting a choir and playing the organ, piano and harpsichord.

David Arnold’s research focuses on global versus local marketing; marketing strategy; innovation and market evolution; brand management; and global customer management. He has been a strong advocate of local marketing by global corporations. His writing and consulting in multinational marketing has focused particularly on brands, and relationships with local sales and distribution units.

Prior to joining the School as Adjunct Professor of Marketing, he was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. He also holds adjunct faculty positions at CEIBS, in China; and Rochester/Bern, in Switzerland.

David Arnold received his MPhil from London University; his MBA from City University; and his DBA from Harvard University. From 1993 to 1996, he was the Stanley Roth Fellow at Harvard Business School; and from 1995 to 1996 he held the Du Pont Foundation Fellowship for International Research. He has written a number of Harvard Business School case studies, and in 2002 he was a winner of the Academy of International Business Case Competition.

Before entering academia, David worked in London as an editor for Mitchell Beazley International; and for the Department of Health and Social Security. He has also worked as a consultant to several multinational companies on international marketing.

He is the author of a number of books, including The Handbook of Brand Management which is now into its third edition.

John Bates is the founder and a director of Sussex Place Ventures Ltd, the School’s in-house venture capital fund manager. For 10 years he led the School’s practical initiatives in developing entrepreneurial firms. This included €20 million of pre-seed and seed venture capital funds and various networks of entrepreneurs, advisors and private investors who have supported over 70 alumni-founded or affiliated companies since 1998.

He started teaching and developing Strategy and Entrepreneurship courses at LBS in 1985, while also starting up, running and selling two technology businesses in Cambridge. He developed and taught New Venture Development, Managing the Growing Business and New Creative Ventures MBA electives and the popular Growing Your Business Open Executive programme. As Fellow in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, he continues to teach on custom programmes for Executive Education clients and the Entrepreneurship Summer School for Masters students.

He received his BSc from Nottingham University in 1972. Following a sales career in the scientific equipment and pharmaceutical industries in the UK and Africa, he graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA with high distinction in 1979.

Mr Bates then became a Marketing Manager for International Paint (now part of AkzoNobel), launching the highly successful Interpon range of solvent-free coatings worldwide. He was invited back to Harvard as a lecturer on the MBA programme in 1983, before joining the London Business School faculty part-time the following year.

Since then he has balanced a career as an entrepreneur, educator, investor and investment manager. He is chairman of DocSociety, Chattermill Ltd , Colmeia Ltd (Hiver) and New Unity CIO (Charity). He is an investor, director or board advisor of a number of early-stage ventures and growing businesses in the creative and technology industries in London.

Professor Julian Birkinshaw was ranked 46th in the 2017 Thinkers50 list of the top global management thinkers. His main area of expertise is in the strategy and organisation of large corporations, and specifically such issues as innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, strategic agility and headquarters-subsidiary relationships.

He is a Fellow of: the British Academy, the Academy of Social Sciences, the Advanced Institute of Management Research (UK), and the Academy of International Business. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorate degrees by the Stockholm School of Economics (2009) and Copenhagen Business School (2018).

Professor Birkinshaw is the author of 15 books, including Fast/Forward, Becoming a Better Boss, Reinventing Management and Giant Steps in Management, and more than 90 articles in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review.

Professor Birkinshaw speaks at business conferences in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia. He is regularly quoted in international media outlets, including CNN, the BBC, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Businessweek and The Times.

An award-winning teacher and scholar and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in entrepreneurship, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms, including two ventures he founded and one he took public.

Since becoming an entrepreneurship professor in 1992, John has published five books, dozens of cases and more than 50 articles in a variety of outlets, including Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal. His research has won national and international awards from the Marketing ScienceInstitute, the American Marketing Association, and the Richard D Irwin Foundation. He is a frequent and sought-after speaker and educator for audiences in entrepreneurship and venture capital.

John’s first and recently updated trade book, The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Investors Should Do Before Launching a Lean Start-up (1e 2003; now 5e, London: FT Publishing 2017), has become the definitive work on the assessment and shaping of entrepreneurial opportunities and is widely used by investors and entrepreneurs and in university courses worldwide.

His second book, the critically acclaimed Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model (Boston: Harvard Business Press 2009), co-authored with Randy Komisar, a partner at the esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was named to “Best Books of 2009” lists by BusinessWeek and INC Magazine.

John’s newest book, The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance or Grow Your Business with Your Customers’ Cash, (Jersey City, Wiley 2014), was named one of five “not-to-be-missed books” for 2014 by Fortune magazine.

John has conducted executive education programmes across five continents for a variety of organisations both large and small, including the Young Presidents’ Organization, Endeavor, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Kenya Airways, Merck-Serono, 3M, the European and African Venture Capital Associations, and the IFC, among many others. He has served on the boards of fast-growing entrepreneurial companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.