Henley Blogs

Sam Meets… Simon Grosse

Whiteknights at the University of Reading is a home for many; students, academics; small businesses, even ducks and swans. One organisation that truly considers Whiteknights as home is a business called Foundation SP, a business based at the enterprise centre in Early gate. Foundation SP is an award-winning Technology Company that provides dynamic technology solutions….

What kind of leader do we now need?

There has been a great deal of noise on the streets of the UK. The two main causes have been football and the visit of President Trump, and while the scope of these topics is vastly different, there is an interesting comparison to draw between them in terms of leadership. bullish directness… There can seldom…

Where is the world in the World Cup?

Ahead of the semi-finals this week, Professor Adrian Bell, Head of the ICMA Centre and football finance expert, reflects on the World Cup so far… Don’t get me wrong, I have loved this World Cup, and perhaps for once this is a universal feeling, but there is something missing, and it isn’t the lack of…

The Map that is your life – doing an MBA (part 3)

Is it what you know or who you know? As part of my MBA Blog triptych, this final instalment deals with the part of my MBA journey that included researching, writing my dissertation and implementing my newly-found know-how into my daily life (yes, not just into my life as a solopreneur, but also areas that…

Are we succeeding in leading digitally or in digital leadership? How to tell…

In an earlier post, we considered how leading digitally differs conceptually from digital leadership within an organisation. Needless to say, both concepts are necessary to fully navigate the complex challenges organisations face in our increasingly digital world. One important question that has emerged from that post is, how do we know we are succeeding in our use…

My Postgraduate Experience at Henley Business School: Challenges & Highlights

I remember the first lecture as a Masters’ student like it was yesterday. One of the first things our course directors told us was the hours we had to study over this year per day: 12 hours! Everyone started laughing, including our tutors, but it wasn’t until after a couple of months that we realised…

The Debate on what is Debatable in Leadership

Last week I attended the annual Windsor Leadership Debate, held at the Royal Institution in London’s Mayfair. Windsor Leadership Trust is a charity founded 1981, that provides “transformational leadership programmes for senior leaders across all sectors, including corporate, public, military, education, faith and not-for-profit” (according to its website), and that operates within the grounds of…

Big Data: Opportunities and Challenges

Chris Flanagan, Data Impact Manager for Henley Careers, reflects on the phenomenal growth of data analytics and the challenges and opportunities that the rise of Big Data present. As an information officer starting out in the 1990s, being “good with data”, although considered useful, would have featured fairly low down in the role description; certainly…

Can we gain leadership skills from great works of fiction?

What a privilege it was to attend a conference of around 100 global leadership scientists, the 3rd Interdisciplinary Perspective on Leadership Symposium – and even more so when it is held in a warm week in spring on the beautiful island of Crete. But now, what can one offer back to a community of managers…

Machines (Back to Humans) or: Who leads whom?

At this year’s Henley Global Masterclasses, I was immediately pulled in by the motto “Championing humanity in a Digital World”. That’s due to two factors: I recently submitted my Henley MBA on the impact of digitisation on the music industry with its benefits (data transparency) and threats (staff redundancies) and the need for freelance or…

Meet Norma, Henley’s IdeaFest 2018 winner

A delicious, innovative and healthy business idea that surprised all of the 6 judges was this year’s IdeaFest winner! Imagine the best brownie you’ve ever had, made out of water, oil, Norma veggie mix and… salad!Yep, you read right, Norma brownies are vegan, have about 50% less calories than a normal brownie (466 calories per…