John Anderson

As a specialist in entrepreneurship and growth, I bring close to 30 years of personal and professional experience working with the leaders of growth companies to my roles as Director of Growth Programmes at Strathclyde Business School and as Non-Executive Chair and Director in growing businesses.

During my career I have been exposed to several hundred growth companies in Scotland, variously as a CA in professional practice; as advisor and mentor; as owner-manager; as business school researcher, case study author and academic practitioner; as peer learning and structured executive education specialist and as angel investor and Non-Executive Director and Chair. As such, I believe that I have an almost unique set of skills and experience of the challenges that every founder / owner faces at different stages of their growth journey and in the latter stages of my career I have been focusing on how best to apply this knowledge and experience at scale by teaching and delivering growth programmes at Strathclyde Business School and with a hands-on intensity as Chair of selected growth companies.

I am a Founding GlobalScot and a member of Chapter Zero, the Directors' Climate Forum, which is helping business leaders consider climate change in board decision-making. I have an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Strathclyde for leadership and commitment to entrepreneurship in Scotland.

My strength lies in working closely with a founder or next generation owner to help them maintain their role as purposeful leader and to help them build a leadership team that is focused on strategy execution and operational excellence - all with the support of an Enlightened Board©.

This is my “Why”.

• Specialist in the issues facing growth companies.
  
  
• Extensive track record in developing entrepreneurial leaders through structured peer learning.
  
  
• Substantial board experience – implementing good governance and developing effective boards.
  
  
• Significant experience of strategic and operational leadership, brand building and reputation management.

• Experienced in strategic planning, fund raising and financial management.
  
  
• Strong interpersonal skills and confident communication at all levels and using all media.

• Active mentor with a track record of developing the individual.
  
  
• Key influencer with wide business, government and media networks.

TEACHING / COURSE LEADERSHIP / PEER LEARNING FACILITATION
SUBJECTS / TOPICS / COURSE MODULES

STRATHCLYDE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Strathclyde Executive Education – 2015 to date

Executive MBA

• Comparative Corporate Governance 
  
  

Growth Advantage Programme

• Purpose
• Strategy Tools - Value Proposition Canvas & Blue Ocean Strategy
• Breakeven and Working Capital Management
• Preparing for the Ultimate Customer (exit planning)
• The Effective Board for Growth

Help to Grow: Management

• Module 3 - Internationalisation and Winning New Markets - Case Study
• Module 6 - Building a Brand Case Study
• Module 9 - High Performance Workplace - Case Study
• Module 11 - Finance and Financial Management
• Module 12 - Implementing Growth Plans - Case Study

Peter Vardy Group: Leadership Development Programme

• Purpose
• Introduction to Conscious Leadership
• Strategy Tools - Value Proposition Canvas & Blue Ocean Strategy

Sales Programmes

• Scottish Enterprise - Start Global Sales Workshop (1 day)
• Scottish Enterprise / Highlands & Islands Enterprise - Entrepreneurial Sales Strategies Stage 1 (2 day)
• Scottish EDGE - Sales Workshop (1 day)
  
  

Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship – 1997 to date

• Lessons from Local Heroes – Scotland’s Entrepreneurial Role Models
• Multiple case studies (author of 6 teaching cases)
• Entrepreneurial Finance 
• Learning from Failure

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL EXCHANGE 1995 TO 2014

•  Peer Learning
  
  

EY TRAINING TEAM – 1989 TO 1994

• Introduction to Strategy
  
• Breakeven Analysis
• Working Capital Management
• BBC2 Troubleshooter Series Case Studies
  
  

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland -1985

Institute of Directors
- Leading from the Chair - 2021
- The Role of the Director and the Board - 2022

EDUCATION 

Strathclyde Graduate Business School

MBA - 1991 to 1994

University of Aberdeen

MA (Accountancy) - 1979 to 1982

As a KE professional I am not typcially involved directly in research, although I have regularly helped research-intensive colleagues and PhD students with their own research by making introductions to my extensive network of entrepreneurs and family business owners and am frequently called upon to provide a practitioner's perspective, drawing on my c30 years of experience in entrepreneurship.

I had become interested in entrepreneurship in the late 1980s when working in Chicago with EY and attended a short Babson College course “Entrepreneurship – Concepts & Practices”.  It was life-changing and on my return to Glasgow with EY, was fortunate to further develop my passion for entrepreneurship during a Part-Time MBA at Strathclyde. 

My MBA Project “Local Heroes – Scotland’s Entrepreneurial Role Models” (1994) was inspired by the publication of the Scotland’s Business Birth-rate Strategy in 1993 and several of my key findings were featured in a new Insider Magazine publication “Scottish Entrepreneur” in November 1994.  I was subsequently commissioned by Scottish Enterprise to further develop my research by interviewing and profiling 20 of my Local Heroes for a new publication “Local Heroes – A Directory of Scotland’s New Entrepreneurs” which was published in 1995 (Scotland’s Year of the Entrepreneur) and again in 1997 and 1999.

The Babson model of entrepreneurship education uses the case method of teaching and during the adoption of the Babson model in Scotland, I was asked by Scottish Enterprise to build on my Local Heroes work and to develop full academic cases for use in each of the Centres for Entrepreneurship in Scotland (Strarthclyde, Stirling, Napier, RGU, Aberdeen and Glasgow Caledonian). In total, I authored 6 cases under the supervision of Dr Frank Martin at Stirling – Case Centre references: 395-115-1, 397-034-1, 397-035-1, 397-036-1, 397-047-1 and 397-048-1.

I co-authored (with Bottomley and Cooper) a chapter in “Enterprise Support Systems – An International Perspective” (ISBN 978-917829-927-3) entitled “Entrepreneurial Role Models in the Scottish Economy, drawing once again on my Local Heroes research.

I was part of the HCE team submitting the REF2021 Impact Case “C17 Business and Management Studies - Enhancing entrepreneurial policy, ecosystems and firm growth”.  My strong relationships with the Scottish Government, regional enterprise support organisations and membership organisations, enabled HCE research to be translated into impactful practice, informing the development of a policy framework to accelerate Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem (Scotland CAN DO). My peer learning expertise and personal & professional experience of working with several hundred entrepreneurs and business leaders informed the design of a suite of entrepreneurship leadership programmes including the ScaleUp Institute-endorsed Growth Advantage Programme focused on scaling high potential ventures.

At a UK level, I was a founding board member of the Enterprise Research Centre and have maintained close working relationships with Prof Stephen Roper at Warwick via The Gender Index and with Prof Mark Hart at Aston via Help to Grow. 

With the success of GAP and, more recently Help to Grow, I now have very strong relationships with the ScaleUp Institute (I am regularly brought in to give the Scottish perspective on scaleups) and with the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) and its subgroup of Small Business Charter schools (I have been a member of several UK-wide Help to Grow working groups).

I was also a founding advisory board member of The Gender Index and worked with Prof Shaw as Associate Principal to secure a partnership with The Gender Index for the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship for the analysis of the Scottish data on Scotland’s female entrepreneurship, leading to our contribution to the recent Ana Stewart Review.