Understand best practices for engaging external stakeholders e.g. industry, NGOs and community organisations, including aligning goals, managing expectations, and ensuring impact.
Engaging external stakeholders is now central to impactful research in business and management. However, for many academics it's not always clear how their approaches are experienced by those outside academia.
So, rather than approaching collaboration solely from an academic viewpoint, in this session Dr Tim Whitehill brings direct insight into what external partners actually need, expect, and value when engaging with research.
This perspective is critical for early-career scholars aiming to build meaningful, impactful partnerships with external stakeholders.
Some of the key topics the session will explore include:
-
What external stakeholders look for in academic partners
- Common disconnects between academia and practice
- Best practices for building strong partnerships from first contact through to sustained collaboration
- Aligning goals and defining shared value
- Managing expectations on both sides
- Ensuring meaningful impact
The session will offer practical insights to help academics engage more effectively with external stakeholders, avoid common pitfalls, and build partnerships that deliver genuine value.
What makes this session distinctive is that it provides direct insight from someone who, as both researcher and external stakeholder, has experience of both sides of the coin and as such, can offer an honest view of how academic engagement is perceived in practice.
Description
The BAM Early Career Academic Network Monthly Webinars are designed to support early-career scholars in business and management.
These informal, interactive sessions provide a platform for participants to engage with experienced academics, share experiences, and gain practical insights into various aspects of academic life. Each session focuses on a specific theme relevant to early-career academics, such as managing research and teaching teams, developing a personal teaching style, navigating grant applications, and engaging in peer review processes.
Webinars feature guest speakers, including senior academics and industry professionals, who share their expertise and experiences, providing valuable guidance and answering participants' questions.
The webinars are conducted via Zoom, fostering an informal environment where attendees can actively participate, ask questions, and engage in discussions with peers and experts.
Provider Information
BAM Early Career Academic NetworkWho Should Attend?
The event speaks to Sections A1, B1, C1, D1 and E1, as detailed in the BAM Framework.
Speakers
Dr Tim Whitehill
Dr Tim Whitehill ESG Director of FCE Projects, has built a portfolio career spanning research and business to advance innovation and social impact in the construction industry, from academic initiatives to strategic startup investment.
He co-founded Saible, a fintech platform improving construction payment systems, and has served as Chief Strategy Officer since September 2023. Drawing on three decades across practice, consulting, and academia, he developed DiPPA (Digital Parallel Payment Accounts) to enhance transparency and fairness. He also co-authored the 2018 report “The Organisational Resilience of the UK Construction Industry,” which foresaw insolvency risks ahead of the Carillion collapse. In 2004, he co-founded FCE Projects Ltd, a civil engineering firm specialising in electricity distribution networks, and later became Co-CEO of the non-profit Save Construction Initiative in 2020.
From 2010 to 2020, Tim led Project Five Consulting, delivering major programmes in digital transformation, productivity, sustainability, and social value. He was named Honorary Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University in 2023 and completed his DBA on organisational resilience in UK construction firms in 2025. In 2026, he will join the Board of Trustees for Mindflow Charity, supporting mental health and wellbeing in the sector.
Facilitator
Dr Rebecca Beech
Dr Rebecca Beech is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Marketing at Oxford Brookes Business School. Rebecca holds a PGCERT and Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Her research is positioned at the intersection of digital marketing and sustainable marketing, with a particular focus on encouraging pro-environmental consumer behaviour, sustainable consumption, online knowledge sharing, activism, and the role of influencers.
Her current funded research projects include:
- Using an experimental research design and case study approach, this study explores the impact of luxury fashion brands AI influencers on consumers’ sustainable consumption intentions and attitudes.
- Using an experimental research design to examine the influence of AI versus human influencers’ sustainable messaging on social media, and how this affects consumers’ sustainable consumption behaviours related to clothing.
- A qualitative study exploring UK consumer perceptions and barriers to renting everyday clothing, with the aim of developing an effective business model for renting every day clothing.
Dr Beech also holds leadership roles in external learned societies, including the British Academy of Management and the Macromarketing Society.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/dr-rebecca-beech-3b165359/
Dr Sahar Bakr
Dr Sahar Bakr is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Marketing at Nottingham Trent University.
A pharmacist by background she holds an MSc in Biotechnology and Entrepreneurship and a PhD in Business and management from the University of Nottingham which focuses on consumer use of smart devices in the context of health, fitness and self-tracking.
Sahar spent time in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry as a Product Manager, where she managed several social media campaigns and worked with organisations to launch both consumer (B2C), and medical-grade (B2B) products successfully in the MENA region.
Her experience in industry has formed the basis of her teaching ethos which is centred around the power of industry-focused marketing education and the application of theoretical concepts, to real-life situations.
Before joining NTU, Sahar held a full-time position at De Montfort University, after working part-time at the University of Nottingham and Birmingham City University while doing her PhD.
During her time in higher education, she designed, led and taught several modules on undergraduate, MSc, and MBA courses which included Direct Marketing, Global Marketing, Digital Consumer Behaviour, Digital Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Marketing and Project Management.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/sahar-bakr/
Dr Mollie Bryde-Evens
Dr Mollie Bryde-Evens finished her VC-Scholarship funded PhD in October 2023 and is currently a full-time Lecturer in Ethical Business and Responsible Management at Liverpool Business School.
Mollie’s scholarly background is in philosophy and normative ethics, and her broad areas of interest are triple bottom line sustainability and business ethics, with a focus on normative ethical theories.
She was awarded the Emerging Scholars Award by the Society of Business Ethics in 2022. Mollie is also interested in and passionate about EDIR related issues, and was a co-founder of the first EDIR society at Liverpool John Moores: the RIDE (Respect, Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity) Society.
She also co-leads an inclusion and diversity project titled 'I Belong!'. Beyond this, Mollie is Co-lead of the Early Career Academic Network for the British Academy of Management (BAM) and is a BAM council member.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/molliebryde/
Dr Daniel Fisher
Dr Daniel Fisher is a qualitative researcher. His work draws on a wide variety of theoretical lenses to understand public and private dynamics among and between organizations, as well as within occupations.
Daniel's main objective is to understand what it is like to be the person he studies. What tensions do they encounter? How does their physical environment affect them? Why do they execute their job in a particular way? He is equally interested in how organizations, hierarchically or collectively, make sense of their public and private responsibilities.
Daniel's current research program has focused on the UK rail industry as it exemplifies a setting that grapples with both public and private demands. His research has explored narrative constructions of efficiency in public organizations, how organizations shape and influence bodywork of an occupational group, moral dynamics linked with drives for efficiency and wrongdoing by public-private partnerships.
These projects have maintained his interests in processes of automation, discourses and rhetoric, processes of commensuration, misconduct and wrongdoing as well as identity and temporality in organization studies.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/daniel-fisher-03b145292/
Benefits of attending
- Develop practical skills relating to important topics such as publishing, grant applications, teaching strategies, and research management from experienced academics.
- Grow your network and community by connecting with peers and senior scholars, fostering collaborations, mentorship opportunities, and a supportive professional network.
- Gains insights from guest speakers who share real-world experiences, tips, and strategies to navigate the early stages of an academic career effectively.
Contact
Please contact the BAM Office at [email protected] with any queries.
Event Fee
BAM Members and Student Members: Free
Non-Members: £60
If you are booking multiple paid events as a Non-Member, it may be cheaper for you to purchase a BAM Membership as nearly all BAM Events are free or at a discounted rate for Members.
For more information about Becoming a BAM Member, please visit BAM Membership
Registration closes on 25th May 2026 at 23:59 BST.