Professor Brian Collins CB
Brian Collins is an active consultant in infrastructure systems thinking. Previously the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser in the Departments of BERR (then BIS now BEIS) and Transport where he initiated consideration of systems thinking into transport and infrastructure policy and investment. Brian then moved into academia and now balances his time across academic and consulting practice. Brian was Founding Convener of the UKCRIC research collaboratorium.
A systemic thinker and practitioner, Brian brings insight to the development of public policy and understanding of how government works, and a substantial grasp of the national and international context in which decisions are made. He is an adviser to governments around the world. Prior to the UK activities and positions he was a senior civil servant, a CIO of two large organisations and a research scientist and director.
Dr Peter Dudley PhD BSc
No ‘perhaps’ at all about Peter Dudley, he is a man of unreasonable beliefs. Unreasonable enough to believe that ‘right thinking’ is the basis of ‘right action’. Unreasonable enough to believe that the world we are creating has all the characteristics of a mediocracy – where it is regarded as desirable to be lacklustre, to be passive and to fit in. Unreasonable enough to believe that organisations and institutions whose mediocre performance is protected by rules that allow only mediocre protest are both undesirable and dangerous. And unreasonable enough to believe that something can, and therefore should, be done about it.
Peter is an expert in Adaptive Systems. His international consulting career extends over ten years with particular experience of working with public sector organisations.
Peter holds a PhD in Management Systems and Sciences, a first degree in Management Information Systems and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Operational Research Society. He has produced 3 books in the field of Management Science and is a regular contributor to management journals.
Keith Elford MA(Cantab) FRSA
Keith Elford has been helping leaders of organisations across the sectors make the changes required for sustainable success since 1998. His route into consulting was unusual – it started when, as the Bishop’s Chaplain, he co-led a major change project in Guildford Diocese. He is now particularly adept at helping clients manage the human dimension of change: articulating purpose and values, engaging people, defining and shifting mind-set and behaviours. He helps clients make sense of new challenges both rationally and emotionally and consequently operate in different ways to get different outcomes. His practice is rooted in an understanding of organisation as a system, combining people and processes, and set in a changing environment.
Keith remains an Anglican priest and has a passion for finding ways of recognising and realising the ‘connectedness’ of life. He likes to cross or break down the barriers so characteristic of society today, those that separate the ‘private’ worlds of, for example, business, the arts and community. ‘Creating the Future for the Church’, his book applying principles of organisational effectiveness to the Church of England, was published in September 2013. Keith is also a part-time doctoral student at Roehampton University in organisation and theology.
Professor Peter Kawalek PhD MSc
Peter Kawalek is Professor of Information Systems in the School of Business and Economics at Loughborough University and Director of the Centre for Information Management. He is a Visiting Professor at Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and Letterkenny Institute of Technology in County Donegal. He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at Deusto Business School in the Basque Country. Peter’s PhD is in Computer Science. He has experience to board level in media and rail industries, and has worked extensively with government, including Office an Taoiseach, Department of Communities and Local Government, the NHS, Leeds City Council, Tameside Council, Greater Manchester Police and Salford City Council.
He has been working on projects with Beckford Consulting for 20 years.
