Previous Speakers

An English Literature degree; a stint as a management consultant; a passion for cooking – all stirred up with travel in over 40 countries has proved to be a great recipe for starting a food business. Charlie Bigham’s, founded in 1996, operates out of two large kitchens (in London & Somerset) making a range of delicious oven ready food sold in Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Ocado and Booths. The company has a team of 700 and annual sales of over £120m and is on a mission to demonstrate that delicious food can be made in a way that puts people and sustainability at the heart of everything.

Evelyn Welch graduated from Harvard University, receiving her PhD from the Warburg Institute, University of London. She was previously Senior Vice-President for Service, People & Planning at King’s College London, and had been Vice-President (Arts and Sciences) and Provost (Arts and Sciences). She has taught at University of Essex, the Warburg Institute, and held leadership roles at University of Sussex (PVC Teaching and Learning) and Queen Mary, University of London (Dean, Arts and PVC Research and International). As Professor of Renaissance Studies, she has led major research programmes including ‘The Material Renaissance,’ and ‘Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images’. She recently completed a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award for a project on ‘Renaissance Skin’ and has authored numerous books, including Fashioning the Early Modern: Creativity and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800 (OUP 2017), and Shopping in the Renaissance (Yale 2005), winning the Wolfson Prize for History.

Professor in Practice Margaret Heffernan was a BBC produced programme producer for 13 years.  She then moved to the US becoming a tech/media chief executive, and was named one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter. The author of six books, Margaret’s Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the decade’s most important business books by the Financial Times. A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and How We Do Better was itself prize-winning. Uncharted: How to map the future was published in 2020, and quickly became a bestseller. Her TED Talks have been seen by over 12 million people. She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organisations. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and continues to write for the FT and the Huffington Post.

Phil Harrison has been at the forefront of the games industry as a creator, developer, investor and executive for more than 35 years. From the 8-bit home computer revolution in the 1980’s, launching PlayStation in the 1990’s and as President of Worldwide Studios at Sony, investing in leading mobile games company Supercell in the 2010’s, as an executive at Microsoft and – since 2018 – at Google, Phil has enjoyed a unique perspective on the explosive growth of the global games industry and the pivotal role that entrepreneurs and risk-takers play in building the future.

Professor Andy Salmon, moved to Bath four years ago from Cambridge, currently focusing on regeneration, social cohesion, place making, and the development of human and social value through the ISTART and other projects. Roles include: pro vice chancellor External Bath Spa University, chair of corporation at Bath College, director of the London Film Academy, tutor for the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education.

Professor Yasin Rofcanin is currently director of the Future of Work (FoW) Research Centre at the University of Bath School of Management. Its strategic goal is University to encourage the development of internationally-leading research with global impact and to develop postgraduate research students and early career researchers. His long standing research focus sits on the intersection of organisational behaviour, human resource management and organisational psychology. Current and recent publications focus on the themes around flexible work practices, employee proactive work behaviours and well-being at work. His research appears in leading international journals.