Prof. David Grayson

David joined Cranfield as director of the new Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility in April 2007, after a thirty year career as a social entrepreneur and campaigner for responsible business, diversity, and small business development. This included founding Project North East which has now worked in more than 60 countries around the world; being the founding CEO of the Prince’s Youth Business Trust and serving as a joint managing-director of Business in the Community.

David has an Honorary Doctorate of Law from London South Bank University and was a visiting Senior Fellow at the CSR Initiative of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard (2005-10);

He has served on various charity and public sector boards over the past 20 plus years. These have included the boards of the National Co-operative Development Agency, The Prince of Wales’ Innovation Trust and the Strategic Rail Authority.

He chaired the National Disability Council and the Business Link Accreditation Board; in each case appointed by the Major Government and re-appointed by the Blair administration.

He is currently chairman of the national charity Carers UK championing the role of 6.5million Britons caring for a loved one; and is a former chairman of one of the UK’s larger social enterprises and largest eldercare providers, Housing 21(www.housing21.co.uk) during which the organisation made corporate history by becoming the first-ever not-for-profit successfully to acquire a publicly quoted group of companies. David received an OBE for services to industry in 1994 and a CBE for services to disability in 1999.

The Guardian has recently named David as one of the top ten tweeters on sustainable leadership alongside Al Gore, Tim Cook – CEO of Apple, Sheryl Sandberg – Fasebook’s COO and Kumi Naidoo – the Heed of Greenpeace International

Social entrepreneur and campaigner for responsible business, diversity, and small business development.

He speaks, writes and advises regularly on business, society, entrepreneurialism, and future trends for businesses, media and business schools around the world. He has worked with many, leading global businesses including BP, Shell, Microsoft and Diageo. He has worked with international institutions such as the OECD, the European Union, and the World Bank. He is a regular key-note speaker for business conferences internationally.

He is a regular contributor to, columnist and editorial advisory board member for the Guardian Sustainable Business Blog and The Ethical Corporation (www.ethicalcorp.com). He sits on the Corporate Responsibility stakeholder advisory group for Camelot.

His books include: “Everybody’s Business” (2001) and “Corporate Social Opportunity: Seven Steps to make Corporate Social Responsibility work for your business” (2004) – both co-authored with Adrian Hodges; “Corporate Responsibility Coalitions: The Past, Present, and Future of Alliances for Sustainable Capitalism” co-authored with Jane Nelson, published by Greenleaf Publishing and Stanford University Press (2013); and “Social Intrapreneurism & all that Jazz (2014) co-authored with Melody McLaren and Heiko Spitzeck. He has also contributed to several other books including “The Accountable Corporation” and “What if?”.

David has an Honorary doctorate of Laws from London South Bank University; and was a visiting senior fellow at the CSR Initiative of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2005-10), and variously a Visiting Fellow at several UK and American business schools.