Pentland Centre Advisory Board
Our advisory board consists of individuals from outside academia who have a professional commitment to sustainability in business, and bring a range of perspectives that can help to inform the direction of our work.
Stephen Rubin - Chair of Advisory Board
Chairman of Pentland Group since 1969, Stephen Rubin is a Liverpudlian, a barrister, a Fellow of University College London and a visiting Professor at its School of Public Policy. Whilst Chairman of Pentland, he has served on the Boards of adidas in Germany, La Chemise Lacoste in France and Reebok in America. He has been honoured within the fashion and sporting goods’ industries with five lifetime achievement awards
Pentland Group is a ninety-year-old, privately-owned, family business, trading in over 195 countries and comprising three divisions: Pentland Brands, which includes Berghaus, Canterbury, Ellesse, Endura, KangaROOS, Kickers, Mitre, Red or Dead, SeaVees, Speedo; Pentland Retail, mainly comprising its majority share in JD Sports Fashion plc with over 3000 shops; Pentland Capital, its investment arm with a focus on the consumer and technology sectors. Pentland Group and its subsidiaries hold six Queen’s Awards for Enterprise and has sales of £8 billion and 60,000 employees.
Steve Brammer
Professor Stephen Brammer currently serves as both the Dean of the School of Management and Vice President for Planning & Strategy at the University of Bath. An economist by training, Professor Brammer holds BA (Hons), MA, and PhD degrees in economics from the University of East Anglia. He spent the first eleven years of his academic career at Bath before taking up senior positions at the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham in the UK, and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Steve is recognised globally for his research which focuses on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability with an emphasis on firm-stakeholder relationships, the strategic management of these, and corresponding impacts on organizational performance and reputation. He has held numerous positions of responsibility during his career, contributing across the principal functions and activities of business/management schools as well as significant involvement and service to wider universities and beyond.
Edwin Charnaud
Chairman of Aon Global M&A and Transaction Solutions, Edwin Charnaud is responsible for providing strategic insights and guidance to the regional management teams and other Aon leadership groups to drive accelerated growth in this business, leading a number of special projects and acting as executive sponsor on a number of major private equity and infrastructure fund client accounts.Prior to that, he established, built and led for over two decades Marsh's Private Equity and M&A Services business across the EMEA region, as well as developing the firm’s Infrastructure sector global growth strategy. During that time he also served as a director on the Boards of Marsh’s subsidiaries in Turkey and France as well as on the Board of Kessler & Co AG, Marsh’s Swiss correspondent partner.Edwin has a long-standing relationship with Lancaster University having graduated from there in Law LLB in 1983.
Paul Druckman
Paul Druckman is Chairman of the World Benchmarking Alliance and a Trustee of organisations including Accounting for Sustainability which was established by King Charles III and Shift (Human Rights). He is also on the Impact Investing Advisory Council and the Workiva ESG Advisory Council amongst others. He is an Honorary Professor at Durham Business School.
Paul is a Chartered Accountant who built his own software company before becoming a non-executive director for companies including in the past being Chairman of the Board of Clear Insurance Management Group and the Access Technology Group.
Other highlights in the past have also included being President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW): member of The Takeover Panel; the founding CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Council; a Board member of the UK government regulator (FRC) and Chairman of UK accounting standards.
Linden Edgell
Linden is the Global Sustainability Director and a Partner at ERM – the largest global pure play sustainability consultancy. She leads ERM’s corporate approach to sustainability and reporting and the ERM Foundation. She has been active in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with business and civil society organisations.
Linden leads ERM’s strategic relationships with key international organisations and has been involved in many UN events, and other international initiatives.
Linden is a social scientist and has provided strategic and technical advice to a range of companies, multi-lateral institutions and governments over many years. She has worked in many countries and is listed in the ‘Who’s who of Australian Women’ for her work in professional and voluntary organisations, and she remains actively involved in a number of civil society organisations
Darian McBain
Darian is a sustainability advisor to corporates and startups globally. She developed her experience working as a Chief Sustainability Officer for organisations as varied as Singapore's central bank and in the seafood sector for Thai Union, as well as the National Health Service. For her work she has received many awards, including being named a UN SDG Pioneer for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business, one of Asia's Top Sustainability Superwomen and Edie Sustainability Leader of the Year. Darian is the Chair of the Board of Be Slavery Free and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). She is a Visiting Professor in Practice with the London School of Economics and Political Science (Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment), a Senior Associate with the University of Oxford (Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance) and an Adjunct Professor with the University of Sydney (School of Physics).
Richard Spencer
Richard is Director of Sustainability at ICAEW. He joined ICAEW in 2005 to establish the sustainability practice within the Reputation & Influence department.
Before joining ICAEW Richard worked as a strategy consultant in the Natural Resources division of Accenture. Prior to that he held a number of roles at N M Rothschild & Sons Ltd in the bank’s treasury and natural resources project finance teams. Richard began his career at the Bank of England.
Richard holds degrees from the universities of Leeds and London. He is a Visiting Fellow of the Bayes Business School, City University of London and sits on the school’s Research Ethics Committee. He is a member of the Social Value UK board, the UN Global Compact UK Network Advisory Group, and the UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce Delivery Group. Richard chairs the Sustainable Finance Education Charter group and is also a Companion of the British Academy of Management.
Tom Trezise
Tom Trezise is a consultant holding senior advisory roles with a broad spectrum of clients, ranging from early-stage enterprises to Fortune 100 companies. He developed an interest in using his experience and insights into dealing with large and complex problems, to support a range of companies and organisations to develop long-term sustainability solutions.
He was a Contributor to The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge which ranked as one of the most seminal books of the 20th Century and advisor to Jim Botkin on his book Smart Business- How Knowledge Communities Can Revolutionize Your Company.
Tom has a long-standing relationship with Lancaster University, as an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Department of Entrepreneurship And Strategy at the Management School.
