Barclays Bank's top SME economist, Dr Richard Roberts, has
joined De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester as a visiting
professor.
Dr Richard Roberts is SME (small and medium sized enterprises)
Market Analysis Director at Barclays Bank in the UK, which has
around 580,000 SME customers. He has more than 30 years' experience
of researching the SME sector. Prior to joining Barclays in 1984,
Richard worked in a number of research and policy roles for small
business organisations and the CBI (Confederation of British
Industry). He was also seconded by the Government to work on a
number of new initiatives such as the Loan Guarantee Scheme.
Richard's team at Barclays undertakes a wide range of in-house
research projects on all aspects of the business customer base for
both business development and risk. In addition, the team works
with external research agencies and universities on a range of
projects and works closely with Government departments and the Bank
of England.
Outside of Barclays, Richard is a member of the ACCA SME
Advisory Panel, the IFRS SME Advisory Panel and CASE. He is also a
non-executive director of the National Council for Graduate
Entrepreneurship, a member of The Department for Business,
Innovation and Skills (BIS) Access to Finance Advisory Group and
the Secretary of State's Advisory Panel on the UK Economy.
DMU's Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship
(CREME), based in the university's Leicester Business School, is
currently working on a major research project with Richard. Making
diversity everyone's business is a public - private collaborative
project to promote diversity, access to finance and access to
markets in ethnic minority entrepreneurship.
Professor Monder Ram, OBE, director at CREME at DMU, said: "We
have had a long history of collaborating with Barclays Bank on
research, and we are thrilled that Dr Roberts has joined us as a
visiting professor."
Dr Roberts commented: "This is an exciting new challenge for me.
I look forward to working with Professor Ram and colleagues at DMU
to help further enhance the reputation of CREME in the area of
enterprise research."
Monder and Richard have been working together on a small firm
seminar series, which will be open to DMU staff and guests. The
series has been designed to reflect the distinctive strengths of
small firms research in Leicester Business School, and the seminars
will focus on disseminating leading-edge research and implications
for policy and practice. Internationally recognised researchers
will discuss their work alongside leading policy-makers and
practitioners.
The first seminar in DMU's Small Firm Seminar Series, Small
Firms Research at DMU, will be on Wednesday 2 March 2011. For more
information contact Liz Frost, telephone 0116 250 6428, email:
efrost@dmu.ac.uk