Meet the Executive Education and Professional Development Team

Dr Lisa Knight is Head of External Engagement and Professional Programmes at Liverpool Business School, where she leads strategic partnerships and drives industry engagement and knowledge exchange. She spearheads collaborations between academia and practice, including a flagship partnership between Liverpool Business School and University Hospitals Liverpool Group NHS Trust.

Lisa's research focuses on developing and implementing systems and place-based leadership within the public sector, with a particular emphasis on health and social care. She also has a strong interest in pedagogical frameworks for leadership development.

Alongside her academic and leadership roles, Lisa has extensive board-level experience, having served as a Non-Executive Director and Chair across the private, public, and voluntary sectors.

Melissa Holt-Brewster is responsible for the overall design and the quality assurance of programmes. She is a seasoned Organisational Development practitioner. She has over 20 years’ experience of working across Local Authorities and the NHS, where most recently she engaged in anti-racism work on a personal and organisational level.

She is a skilled Organisational Development consultant with a Masters Degree in Strategic HR. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and is an experienced facilitator, qualified Coach and Team Coach, and holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Coaching Supervision. She brings energy, empathy, passion for workplace equalities and practical experience of supporting and developing teams in complex services.

She holds Project Management and Programme Management qualifications and is trained in Quality Improvement approaches and considers herself a “pracademic” combining practical experience with academic practice. She is the Programme Lead for the NHS Leadership Academy ‘Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’ Healthcare Leadership Masters programme at Liverpool John Moores University.

Melissa is also a Doctoral candidate in the subject of Business Administration with a research interest in Anti-Racism, Allyship and Psychological Safety in the NHS.

Making programmes happen

Jonathan Britten has over 25 years of Project Management and Client Management experience working in both the private and public sector.

He is a certified Project practitioner and a fellow of the Higher Education Teaching Academy and ran his own business delivering online learning and leadership development solutions for several years.

Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship for innovators

Chris Taylor has many years teaching experience having joined LJMU in 2002. His areas of interest include entrepreneurship, innovation and digital business and he is currently the programme manager for the Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship programme and a new BSc in Applied Entrepreneurship. Chris works closely with the Centre for Entrepreneurship in LJMU to support start-up businesses and deliver training. Chris is currently studying for his Doctorate which is focused on innovation in the public sector. He is a fellow of the Higher Education Teaching Academy and is involved in several enterprise education organisations including the National Council for Enterprise educators and Team Academy UK.

Business, marketing and enterprise in practice

Dr Fiona Armstrong-Gibbs has worked in academic teaching posts across a number of UK and international higher education establishments for over 15 years and is based in the Liverpool Business School. Prior to joining academia, Fiona worked in business-to-business sales, marketing and management roles in the fashion industry at Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren. She also had responsibility for the early-stage international expansion and growth of several well-known brands, such as Oliver Sweeney, and Jimmy Choo. Fiona is now a founder director and Chair of Baltic Creative CIC a social enterprise established in Liverpool in 2009 to support the development and growth of the Creative and Digital industries.

Her most recent doctoral research explores social enterprise and innovative business models as a catalyst for regeneration and growth in the creative and digital sector in Liverpool. The research aims to explore how we build creative and sustainable communities in post-industrial city environments and engage with the social economy.

Effective leadership styles

Fiona McNamara is a Senior Lecturer, HEA Senior Fellow and professionally qualified career coach with over 25 years' experience working in Higher Education. Specialisms include leadership and professional development, reflective practice, career development. She is British Psychological Society Level A & B qualified in psychometric ability and personality testing. Expertise in a range of personality assessment tools including MBTI (qualified parts I and I), Hogan HPI/HDS, Emotional Intelligence (ESCI), TKI conflict management, Dimensions.

Engage your employees

Jane Eme-Power’s strengths are her ability to build relationships with individuals and groups, this enables her to identify how best to offer support for individual development and personal growth and to support the vision for strategic planning and leadership, alongside the development of a strong and inclusive culture within an organisation.

Jane has over 30 years’ experience of working in a Human Resources capacity, in both the voluntary and public sector within the Liverpool City Region. Jane has worked in both operational and strategic roles and has led on organisational change initiatives that have instrumental in delivering successful outcomes for companies.

Jane has also been working within the education field since 2003 and is presently a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool Business School delivering a range of Human Resources related programmes, including Leadership and Management Development. Within this role, Jane has developed a strong appreciation of the value and importance of continuing professional and personal development and its impact on professional practice and personal growth.

Jane is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Co-Chair of Merseyside and North Cheshire CIPD Branch, and is a non-legal member of the Employment Tribunal Service, a post she has held since 1999.

Coach and inspiration

Dr Jo Vincett is a voluntary sector researcher, executive coach and senior lecturer in Executive Education. She teaches in the areas of coaching skills, research skills and scholarly business practice. In addition, Jo is the Lead Coach for Liverpool Business School's community of coaches for the Circle Leaders' Programme, a national leadership development programme for Circle Health Group's senior leaders (formerly BMI Healthcare).

Jo is a researcher and ethnographer in the area of voluntary/civil society organisations, and a doctoral candidate at Liverpool Business School. She is a Trustee at the Voluntary Sector Studies Network and their EDI Lead.

Prior to working in Liverpool Business School, Jo worked in the commercial sector for five years before changing her focus to the voluntary/non-profit sector. She has worked with the United States Peace Corps in the Eastern Caribbean as a small business development advisor and trainer for a rural agricultural development NGO; she was elected the Lead Volunteer for a group of 19 Peace Corps Volunteers in Antigua and Barbuda. She has also completed an internship with the United Nations International Trade Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, and United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Vienna, Austria.

Jo holds a Professional Coaching Certification (2007). Her dissertation explored how coaching could be utilised for organisational effectiveness in the non-profit sector.

Joshi Jariwala is a senior lecturer within Liverpool Business School and a member of HR teaching team. Starting as an accountant and moving into HRM, she brings a wealth of practical expertise as a seasoned practitioner spanning over 25 years. Industries include private practice, criminal justice, third sector and NHS on both an employed and self-employed basis. She teaches on undergraduate, postgraduate, corporate and apprenticeship programmes and has a good understanding of development gained through her interest in the student experience, and engagement in programme management. She is currently working on her DBA thesis on the topic of job crafting

Leadership development in action

Dr Kevin Flinn is a Senior Lecturer in Executive and Professional Development. Before taking on a full-time academic role in 2018, Kevin worked for over twenty years as a leadership and organisational development practitioner in the Financial Services, Management Consultancy and Higher Education sectors, respectively.

Kevin's teaching, research and community interests focus on leadership and OD with a special (and specialist) interest in complexity and group analytic perspectives on management, organisation, change, group process and citizenship.

Kevin is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Associate member of the Institute of Group Analysis.

Projects and agile working

Dr Natalie Marguet is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Leadership and Organisational Development, where she is responsible for developing and delivering modules on the MBA, CMDA and bespoke leadership courses across the north-west. Additionally, I proudly serve as the Lead Action Learning Facilitator for the Circle Leaders' Programme—a national leadership development initiative for Circle Health Group's senior leaders (formerly BMI Healthcare), solidifying my commitment to impactful leadership development.

Her teaching relates to project management, strategic consultancy research, research strategies for practitioners, and scholarly business practice. Before joining academia in 2010, Natalie worked for ten years across several sectors, including transport, construction and financial services, and held several managerial positions.

At the start of 2024, she celebrated collaborative success with FCE Projects Ltd. and Liverpool Business School, achieving an "Outstanding" grade in their transformative 2-year partnership. The partnership was extended with the design and delivery of a new Future Leaders Group Development Programme, driven by the transformative power of Action Learning and coaching.

In 2017, she received external funding from the Association for Project Management titled ‘Capturing and evaluating individual and social factors that influence critical project decisions’. This research strives to understand how real-time project decisions can be captured, mapped and measured to gain insights into the ways that decisions are made in a project context.

Leader and leadership development

Dr Paul Irvine is a senior lecturer in the field of leading and leadership development in Executive and Professional Development. He is a ‘practitioner researcher’, combining his academic studies with an eclectic range of leadership roles gained over many years and including executive level which gives a rich understanding of how leadership is enacted in the workplace and beyond.

Paul’s area of research interests includes the specific challenges to be found in early stage and middle leadership, along with an ongoing study into how a leader’s experiences throughout their life inform and influence their leadership role at work.

He has coached and mentored many leaders including school leaders in Manchester, staff at Cambridge University and industrial leaders in North America, Europe and Asia.

HR and people management

With twenty years of experience in senior HR and People Management, Paul McEvoy Clarke stands as a progressive leader in the retail and public sectors. As the Programme Leader for Human Resource and People Management at Liverpool Business School, Paul has shaped the narrative of HR education, integrating undergraduate, postgraduate, and apprenticeship programmes with the ever-evolving dynamics of the modern workplace.

Paul possesses a commitment to equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, particularly within the LGBTQIA+ community, reflected in their influential role as the Regional CIPD Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Lead. Their efforts have consistently underscored the importance of creating a workplace where everyone has a sense of belonging and the freedom to be their authentic selves.

Currently immersed in academic research as a doctoral candidate, Paul is exploring the transformative power of lived histories and storytelling in fostering transgender inclusion in the workplace. This working thesis not only signifies a quest for knowledge but also represents a heartfelt endeavour to educate and enlighten management and leaders on the importance of embracing diversity at its core.

With a robust foundation in strategic HR management paired with an impassioned drive for social justice, Paul is not just navigating change but actively sculpting a more inclusive and understanding professional landscape for generations to come.

Paul Lees has a background in teaching and leadership in both the UK and overseas. Improvement projects led to Paul’s interest in further study. He holds a master’s degree in education and leadership and is a qualified executive coach.

Immediately prior to joining LJMU, Paul was a senior educationalist at the Royal College of Physicians. Paul’s research interests encompass both a business and education perspective. He is currently exploring the relationship between action learning and organisational development and the perception and utility of generative AI. He has experience of engagement with private, public and third-sector organisations.

Paul is a senior fellow of the higher education academy (SFHEA) and is a certified management and business educator (CMBE).

Susan Barry a Senior Lecturer in Executive Education at the Liverpool Business School, Susan lectures across a range of MBA, MSc, postgraduate and undergraduate programmes as well as corporate work. Prior to joining LJMU she had over twenty years’ experience working within education, as a specialist in business education. Susan held various leadership roles, largely centred around organisational, staff and learner development and have also worked in HR within the public sector.

She is research active and have published. As a qualitative researcher she is interested in the lived experiences of individuals, groups and organisational dynamics and the interface with organisational policy and processes. With a focus on examining implications for theory and practice, to benefit both organisations and employee health and wellbeing.