Train 2000 - The Centre for Women's Enterprise and Employment

The Leading Experts

The Women's International Centre for Economic Development (WICED) is privileged to have some of the most distinguished academics and practitioners in the field of entrepreneurship and gender studies collaborating on our shared agenda.

These experts bring a huge range of knowledge and skills to WICED, and play a significant role in developing the organisation as a world leader.

In particular, the Expert Panel provides:

• An international context for the development
• World class input and specialist knowledge relating to research priorities, female entrepreneurship support, best practice, governance, strategy and sustainability
• Rigorous academic approach to the development of gender neutral knowledge
• An unrivalled forum researching entrepreneurial needs and connecting evidence to policy development
• Leadership for the WICED International Research Hub

The Expert Panel is convened by Alison Price, Chair of WICED.

WICED are proud to introduce the International Research Hub Expert Panel founding members as:

• Dr Haya Al-Dajani
• Dr Naomi Birdthistle
• Professor Tom Cannon
• Yvonne Caspers
• Professor Patricia Greene
• Professor Colette Henry
• Dr. Alena Krížková
• Professor Susan Marlow
• Professor Helle Neergaard
• Professor Teresa Nelson
• Christine Van Nuffel

Alison Price

Alison Price currently holds the Chair of Women's International Centre for Economic Development (WICED) and is Director of Educator Development at the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE). Prior to this, Alison was Head of Enterprise Education at Leeds Metropolitan University, providing academic leadership for the HEFCE funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the "Institute for Enterprise".

Alison has over a decade's experience of enterprise teaching and curriculum development which has been enhanced by US experiences gained from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entrepreneurial programme at Sloan Management School.

Alison has published within the field of strategic management, corporate social responsibility and small business development. She is currently working on several book chapters to promote enterprise education. She is a passionate advocate of women's enterprise and has oversight of WICED and Train 2000's social and economic impact assessments.

Dr Haya Al-Dajani

Haya Al-Dajani is presently a lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management at the University of East Anglia's Norwich Business School. She also chairs the Women, Research and Enterprise Forum (WREF) there which she launched in March 2008. Her primary research focus is on the inter-relationship between women's empowerment and enterprise engagement. She has undertaken research with home-based, self employed and entrepreneurial migrant and displaced women operating in the Middle East region's developing economies, primarily Jordan.

Before joining the University of East Anglia, Haya worked at Strathclyde University and Bath University in the UK and at Chestnut Hill College (Philadelphia) and California State University - Stanislaus as a Senior Fulbright Scholar. She began her career as a researcher and consultant to a number of international organisations operating in Jordan including UNICEF, UNIFEM, USAID, ILO, and the US Peace Corps. In 1994, she co-founded the Middle East Centre for Human Studies in Amman - Jordan's first private sector organisation offering research, training and consultancy services to women-led non-profit organisations.

Dr Naomi Birdthistle

Naomi Birdthistle is the director for the MBS in International Entrepreneurship Management at the University of Limerick. She is also a visiting professor to Helsinki School of Economics on the area of Entrepreneurship in the Global Economy. She is a Government of Ireland Scholar having been funded by the Irish Research Council for the Social Sciences for a two-year study which is examining the characteristics and personality traits of high potential start-up companies in both Ireland and the US.

Naomi is the vice-chair of Ireland's Network of Teachers and Researchers of Entrepreneurship (INTRE) and is an Independent Expert Panel member for the European Commission for Framework 7 calls. She is a member of the Family Firm Institute; an associate member of the International Family Enterprise Research Academy; a member of the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship; the Family Business Network; the Institute for Small Business Enterprise and the Irish Academy of Management. Naomi is a reviewer for a variety of journals including Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice, the Family Business Review Journal; the Journal of Managerial Psychology; and the Irish Journal of Management.

Naomi is on a number of editorial boards such as: the Small Business Institute Journal, the Electronic Journal of Family Business Studies; an Associate Editor on the Editorial Board for the International Indigenous Journal of Entrepreneurship, Advancement, Strategy and Education.

Professor Tom Cannon

Tom Cannon is Professor of Strategic Development at the University of Liverpool Management School. Tom's career is unusual in embracing the public and private sectors, academe and new ventures. He holds Visiting Professorships in Britain, the USA and Asia and non-executive Directorships in several UK companies. Earlier he was Director of Manchester Business School (MBS). On leaving Manchester, Tom was Chief Executive of the Management Charter Initiative and subsequently the Management and Enterprise National Training Organisation. He was the Mercer's School Memorial Professor of Commerce at Gresham College, a prestigious position in the City of London dating back 400 years. He has held academic appointments in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

Tom has strong links with policy makers in the EC, UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, China, India and Pakistan. His 24 books include best sellers such as:

• "The Ultimate Book of Business Breakthroughs",
• "Welcome to the Revolution",
• "Guinness Book of Business Records",
• "How to Get Ahead in Business"

as well as more mainstream academic texts on Business Strategy, Marketing and Business Ethics. He has published almost 100 academic papers and writes regularly in the national and international media including, The Times, Guardian, The Times Higher Education Supplement. His views on management, business and economic issues are reported frequently on TV and radio.

Yvonne Caspers

Yvonne Caspers is entrepreneur and member of the board of Vrouw in Zaken (Women in Business) from The Netherlands.

Yvonne launched her own business as independent advisor in improving customer processes and increasing commercial strength of teams and organisations. Personal leadership and authenticity are important in her activities to improve business results. Her wealth of experience in sales, marketing, business development and her enterprising way of thinking has been built throughout her career in several commercial and management roles at, amongst others, Randstad, one of world's leading HR service companies.

Professor Patricia Greene

Patricia G. Greene is the F.W. Olin Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship at Babson College where she formerly served as Provost (2006-2008) and Dean of the Undergraduate School (2003-2006). Prior to joining Babson she held the Ewing Marion Kauffman/Missouri Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Missouri - Kansas City (1998-2003) and the New Jersey Chair of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Rutgers University (1996-1998). She was a founding member of the Rutgers Centre for Entrepreneurial Management and the coordinator of the Rutgers Entrepreneurship Curriculum. At Babson her accomplishments centered upon revising the undergraduate program to improve student satisfaction, developing and implementing the strategic plan, the enhanced scope of the liberal arts curriculum, an expanded approach to a global education, and contributing towards the planning and launch of the capital campaign.

Professor Greene's research focuses on the identification, acquisition, and combination of entrepreneurial resources, particularly by women and minority entrepreneurs. She is a founding member of the Diana Project, a research group focusing on women and the venture capital industry. In 2007 the Diana Project was awarded the SFS-NUTEK Award, given to recognize those who produce scientific work of outstanding quality and importance related to entrepreneurship. The Diana Projects books include International Women's Entrepreneurship: Research on the Growth of Women Owned Businesses, Women and Entrepreneurship: Contemporary Classics, Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High Growth Businesses (recently republished in Chinese). Her work has been published in numerous national and international academic journals. She is currently working on a book exploring the connections between virtual reality and higher education. Professor Greene serves on the national advisory board for the SBA's Small Business Development Centres and as the Vice Chair for Research for the Centre for Women's Business Leadership Board.

Professor Colette Henry

Colette Henry is the Norbrook Professor of Business & Enterprise at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, and President of the Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (ISBE). Prior to this, Colette was Head of Department of Business Studies and Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT), Ireland. In her early career, she worked in sales and marketing roles in the SME sector in Northern Ireland and Belgium. An active member of the US-led DIANA International Research Project, Colette co-hosted their 2008 International Research Symposium in conjunction with the University of Ulster in Belfast. She has published widely on the topic of entrepreneurship education and training; programme effectiveness; women's entrepreneurship and the creative industries. Colette is also the founding editor of the recently established International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship (IJGE) which is published by Emerald.

Professor Karen Hughes

Karen D. Hughes is a Professor at the University of Alberta in the Department of Strategic Management and Organization (School of Business) and the Department of Sociology (Faculty of Arts). She holds a Ph.D from the University of Cambridge. Her research and teaching addresses women’s changing economic and family roles, with a special interest in women’s entrepreneurship and employment. She has published extensively on issues of gender, organizations and economic change, and is the author of Female Enterprise in the New Economy (University of Toronto Press).

Dr. Alena Krížková

Alena Krížková is a senior researcher and a head of Gender & Sociology Department at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Alena also provides expertise to the European Commission as an expert on gender equality in employment and social inclusion. She is working on the issues of work/life balance and gender relations in the labour market, in organizations, management and entrepreneurship, social citizenship and women and science.

She has led several research projects: In 2002-2005 she was coordinator of the Czech team on the project Constructing Supranational Political Spaces: The European Union, Eastern Enlargement, and Women's Agency in 2002–2004 project Life Strategies in the Czech Business Sphere (GA AV _R), in 2003 she conducted Public Opinion Research on the Position of Women in the Labour Market, in 2004 - 2005 she was in charge of the first research project mapping the occurrence of harassment and sexual harassment at workplace in CR. In 2005-2007 she was in charge of project Work - Life Balance in the Perspective of Gender Relations, Social and Employment Policies in CR (GA _R). Since 2008 she has been the leader of the project Processes and Sources of Gender Inequalities in Women's Careers in Connection with the Transformation of Czech Society after 1989 and after the Accession of the Czech Republic to the EU (GA AV _R).

She is the author of "Life Strategies of Women and Men in the management and/of Entrepreneurship", co-author of "Management of Gender Relations, Position of Women and Men in Organization" and a co-editor of "Work and Care: Changes to 'Parental Leave' in the Czech Republic and the Family Policy Context in the European Union".

Professor Susan Marlow

Susan Marlow is Professor of Entrepreneurship within the Department of HRM at De Montfort University, Leicester. The focus of Susan's research is upon female entrepreneurship in which field she has published extensively and is an acknowledged international expert.

Recently, Susan has been invited to speak on issues surrounding female entrepreneurship at conferences in Germany, Spain, Poland and Sweden. On two previous occasions she has been invited as visiting Professor to the US (Washington and California) to discuss her work and present to faculty and students; she is also regular contributor to the BBC as a discussant upon the impact of gender upon entrepreneurship and employment. At the moment, Susan is working upon links between gender and business closure and failure, gender and business incubation and female migrant entrepreneurship. In particular, she is engaging with feminist theory to develop understandings of the tensions between gender and entrepreneurial performances within specific contexts.

Drawing upon her expertise, Susan Marlow has undertaken research projects for the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Union, the British Government, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and Barclays Bank. Susan Marlow is an Executive Board Member and Vice President of Research for the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, manager of the women's enterprise track for the annual ISBE conference; a member of Prowess (Promoting Women's Enterprise Support) and organiser of the research track for their annual conference, a member of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants Small Business Committee and Consulting Editor for the International Small Business Journal.

Professor Helle Neergaard

Helle Neergaard received her Ph.D. in international business in 1999 for her dissertation titled "Networks as Vehicles of Internationalization" from the Aarhus School of Business. As first assistant and then associate professor at the Department of Management she became involved in a major national research project aimed at studying technology-based entrepreneurs.

Helle Neergaard is a very active researcher and has produced more than 40 conference papers, journal articles and book chapters over the last four years as well as giving numerous presentations and interviews. She is a member of the board of European Council of Small Business where she heads the conference's Ph.D. consortium. She also sits on the board of the Danish Women's Museum. One pillar of her research is a strong interest in qualitative methods. She is lead editor of 'Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship' published by Edward Elgar (2007). Her other research passion is female entrepreneurs and in particular the influence of self-efficacy on women's propensity to become entrepreneurs and grow their businesses. In her teaching she applies a pedagogy based on effectuation thinking.

Professor Teresa Nelson

Teresa Nelson holds the Elizabeth J. McCandless Professor of Entrepreneurship Chair and is Director of the School of Management's Entrepreneurship Program. Her teaching, research, and consulting focuses on issues of entrepreneurship and global business, most particularly around start-up and growth company governance and top management team dynamics. She has also been engaged for more than a decade with global business issues, including especially China and the European Union.

In the classroom, Dr. Nelson engages executive, graduate, and undergraduate students in rigorous conceptual and experiential learning, believing that students will benefit from an education that moves them out into the world of practice and is relevant to their talents, goals and interests. Nelson has taught on five continents and travels extensively. She has led travel courses for executives and students to many parts of the world, including China, where she has experienced first-hand the emergence of the market economy over the last dozen years. At Simmons she teaches entrepreneurship in the MBA and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and she works with a team to assist, connect and educate women to launch businesses and social ventures.

As an affiliate of the Center for Gender in Organizations, Nelson studies the patterns and strategies of action used by women entrepreneurs as they access venture capital. Dr. Nelson had more than 10 years of business experience in business consulting, government, and politics before returning to school for her MBA and Ph.D. She has founded two businesses and works as an affiliate consultant with two others. She is a frequent speaker on issues of China and women's entrepreneurship.

Christine Van Nuffel

Christine Van Nuffel is a leading practitioner in the women's enterprise and economic development support sector with a proven track record in the development and delivery of a number of innovative programmes targeting female entrepreneurs. She has a Masters in Political and Social Sciences and has undertaken specific enterprise educational programmes in Europe and the US. She has successfully run her own consultancy business and is the founder of the Centre for Independent Female Entrepreneurs.

Christine has coordinated a number of very large and successful European projects including; Startup Course for women in entrepreneurship, Information Fare "The entrepreneur is a woman" (Flanders Expo, Ghent), "Womed" Project & "Womed Award", "Eufoda" Project which lobbied for a clarification of the legal status of collaborating spouses and information campaign.

Christine is currently project leader JUMP which specifically seeks to:

• Offer practical tools to professional women, helping them to realise their professional aspirations
• Support companies that improve women's careers
• Make the best use of all skills that women have to offer
• Help women discover their talents and getting other people to recognise them

Christine has recently led a very successful JUMP initiative - Can women rescue the economy?