Local, national, and global businesses are invited to a half-day conference to launch the newly rebranded Queen’s Business School and Student Hub on Monday 23 October.

The conference will include two panel sessions on the business school’s social commitments and role in the local and global economy, as well as a fireside chat with keynote speaker Dr Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande, globally-renowned venture capitalist and entrepreneur.

This event will give businesses the opportunity to meet academics and staff from Queen's Business School to understand what the School has to offer, and to network.

The half-day conference will begin with registration from 8.30am and conclude following a networking lunch at 2.30pm.

All speaker bios can be viewed here.

Agenda:

8:30am – 9:30am - Registration, tea and coffee

9.30am - 9.45am - Official Welcome by Professor Ian Greer, President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast

9.45am - 10.45am - Fireside chat on 'The purpose of business schools in the 21st century', hosted by Professor MN Ravishankar, Dean and Head of School, Queen's Business School. Keynote speaker, Dr Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande.

10.45am-11.45am - Panel Session 1 - 'The role of rankings & accreditation in advancing business school’s social commitment' hosted by Dr Alan Hanna. Panelists: Ron Tuninga (Vice President and MD Europe, AACSB), Oliver Lowe (Director of Professional and Programme Development, CABS), Daniel Kahn (Senior Insights Specialist – Graduate Management Education, QS), Dr Laura Steele (Director of Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability, QBS) with a video introduction from Dan LeClair (CEO of Global Business School Network)

11.45am - 12.15pm - Refreshments

12.15pm - 1.15pm - Panel Session 2 - 'What can QBS offer the local and global community?' hosted by Professor John Turner, Director of Research and Professor in Finance, Queen's Business School. Panelists: Sue Douthwaite (Chair, QBS Advisory Board), Paul Allen (Executive Chairman, Genesis Bakery), Karl Hanlon (Chief Commercial Officer, FinTrU), Jayne Brady (Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service)

1.15pm - 1.30pm - Closing remarks by Professor Nola Hewitt-Dundas, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences.

1.30pm - 2.30pm - Networking Lunch in the Isdell Courtyard, Riddel Hall

Details subject to change.

About our Keynote Speakers

Professor Sir Ian Greer, President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast

Ian Greer has been President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast since August 2018. He has extensive experience of university innovation driving regional economic growth, including cross-sector developments such as the Northern Health Science Alliance, a collaboration of eight Universities and NHS partners, and is the cofounder of the Health Innovation Research Alliance for NI.

He is a strong advocate for University social responsibility including widening participation. He leads the innovation pillar of the Belfast Region City Deal, driving innovation in key sectors for the local economy - creative industries, health innovation, data science & analytics, and advanced manufacturing. He is the immediate past President of Universities Ireland, promoting collaboration across the island, as well as a member of the Research England Council and the British Council’s Education Advisory Group (EAG).

By way of background, he is a medical graduate of the University of Glasgow, with his research and clinical career in obstetrics & gynaecology. He has held senior leadership positions in several UK Universities, and was Vice President of the University of Manchester, immediately before moving to Queen’s.

Dr Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, Key Note Speaker, Venture Capitalist and Entrepreneur

Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande is a Trustee of the Deshpande Foundation along with his wife Jaishree. Desh is the President and Chairman of Sparta Group LLC, a family investment office. Mr. Deshpande has pursued an entrepreneurial career for the last three decades. He is involved either as the founder, a founding investor or chairman of several companies including Cascade Communications, Sycamore Networks, Coral Networks, Tejas Networks, Cimaron, Webdialogs, Airvana, Sandstone Capital, A123 Systems and Curata. Dr. Deshpande lives in Boston and serves as a life-member of the MIT Corporation, and his support has made possible MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.

The Deshpande Foundation strengthens ecosystems that create significant social and economic impact through entrepreneurship and innovation. Leveraging the experience gained at the MIT Center, the Deshpande Foundation has facilitated the setup of five other centers; Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship in India, EforAll (formerly known as the Merrimack Valley Sandbox) in Lowell/Lawrence Massachusetts, the Pond-Deshpande Center at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, the Dunin Deshpande Queens Innovation Center at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario and the Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. Deshpande Foundation also provided the founding grant for MassChallenge in Boston, National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps™), Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and the UPOP program at MIT.

Dr. Deshpande holds a B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, an M.E. from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and Ph.D. from Queens University in Canada. Deshpande co-chaired the National Council to support President Obama’s innovation and entrepreneurship strategy from 2010 to 2015.

About our Event Hosts

Professor MN 'Ravi' Ravishankar, Dean and Head of Queen's Business School

M.N. Ravishankar is Professor of Technology & Globalisation, and Dean of Queen’s Business School. Previously, he was Professor of Technology & Globalisation at the School of Business & Economics, Loughborough University. During his stint at Loughborough University (2006-2022), Ravi contributed in multiple leadership roles including Associate Dean (Research) and Director of Internationalisation. 

Ravi serves on the editorial board of five scholarly journals and he has been consistently ranked amongst the top 20 global scholars based on research publications in the Association for Information Systems’ basket of world-leading scholarly journals. His external research engagements (2004 - present) span strategic coordination of technology sourcing, management of digital social innovations, and social entrepreneurship.

Ravi’s teaching has been well-received by all student groups, and he has designed and delivered undergraduate, postgraduate, MBA, doctoral, and executive education courses on the strategic management of multinational enterprises, strategies for emerging markets, technology management, management information systems, global sourcing, and fintech innovations.

Dr Alan Hanna, Reader (Education) in Finance at Queen's Business School

Dr Alan Hanna is a Reader (Education) in Finance at Queen's Business School (QBS). Appointed Director of Accreditation in 2016, Alan has led the School through initial accreditations for AMBA, EQUIS, and SBC and initial self-evaluation report development for AACSB. Prior to joining Queen's in 2013, Alan worked for over a decade in investment banking and financial risk management.

Professor John Turner, Director of Research and Professor in Finance, Queen's Business School

John Turner is a Professor of Finance and Financial History at Queen’s University Belfast. He is the former Head of Queen’s Business School and the current Director of Research.

He is also the founder and director of the Queen’s University Centre for Economic History and the Long Run Institute. He has recently published Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles with Cambridge University Press, which was an FT Economics Book of the Year in 2020. His previous book, Banking in Crisis: The Rise and Fall of British Banking Stability, was published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press.

He has held several distinguished visiting positions during his career - he has been a Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England and an Alfred D. Chandler Fellow at Harvard Business School. He has also been a visiting professor at University of Melbourne and Yale University. He is currently an editor at the Economics Observatory and an executive at The Productivity Institute.

Professor Nola Newitt-Dundas, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast.

Recently appointed as a non-executive director to the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Board, Nola is Professor of Innovation Management and Policy at Queen’s University Belfast and a Senior Research Associate with the UK Enterprise Research Centre.

Her research centres on the dynamics of innovation ecosystems with an emphasis on small and medium enterprises, business strategy and technology adoption

Professor Hewitt-Dundas' research has been driven by the desire to explain business performance and how this is affected by the ecosystem that businesses are located in. She has worked extensively with businesses and policy makers in the UK, Ireland and internationally, evaluating and advising on how governments can intervene to overcome failures in the market that constrain business growth.

In 2022, she was made a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and is a previous recipient of the Institute of Directors (NI) Public Sector Director of the Year award.

A﻿genda:

A﻿bout our Keynote Speakers

About o﻿ur Event Hosts

Agenda:

About our Keynote Speakers

About our Event Hosts

Queen's Business School Launch - with Dr Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande