Chris Matchan, a consultant and executive fellow at the University of Aberdeen Business School, has enjoyed a highly successful career in the field of line management and human resources spanning over 20 years. From an early career in selling advertising space and managing sales teams, Chris moved into the field of human resources and spent seven years in various UK based HR roles at ICL/Fujitsu before becoming HR manager for the Middle East and Africa.
Following eight years at Guinness as HR director for United Distillers in Hong Kong, Sydney, and the international region, he worked on the change management process that brought Guinness and Grand Metropolitan together to form Diageo in 1997. He has also worked with clients such as Carphone Warehouse, Scottish Courage, The Tussauds Group, PUMA, Columbia Sports, Britvic and the Grants Whisky Company to name but a few.
Dr Ian Heywood is a Knowledge Transfer Adviser at the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) with Regional responsibility for the North of Scotland. KTN is a partner of Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. KTN helps businesses get the best out of creativity, ideas and the latest discoveries, to strengthen the UK economy and improve people’s lives. Ian’s role is to stimulate and support a portfolio of innovative industry led projects in partnership with universities and other research organisations.
Prior to joining the KTN Team Ian was MBA Programme Director and Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Aberdeen where he was involved in teaching entrepreneurship, new venture creation, leadership and strategy. His research interests lie in the business applications of location based services (GIS & GPS) and social media.
Ian is also co-author of the internationally acclaimed textbook ‘An Introduction to GIS’, Pearson, which has sold over 70,000 copies.
