Nigel is a Non-Executive Director/Advisor and innovation specialist with a career in international business, capacity building and the development of business-to-business services spanning almost 40 years across five continents and has served on the boards of nearly 20 different organisations.
Between 1981 and 1997 he worked for British and US blue chip multi-national corporations on international trade and corporate investment overseeing and developing operations and distribution channels around the world. He also designed and implemented strategy, leadership and change management programmes for group subsidiary companies worldwide and led teams, which won two Queen’s Awards for Export Achievement.
After spells in the USA, Middle East and Japan Nigel joined Sheffield Chamber of Commerce in 1997 as Chief Executive Officer (at the age of 37 he was the youngest Chamber CEO in the UK) overseeing a dramatic change in the organisation and its fortunes, which coincided with the economic regeneration of Sheffield. The Chamber developed into a group of companies and became a lead Chamber in the UK for the provision of international trade, commercial training, enterprise support and overseas business capacity building services with the EU and UN.
Under Nigel’s leadership Sheffield Chamber won awards for Excellence in International Trade (2006) and UK Chamber of the Year (2008) and in both 2007 and 2009 was a finalist in the World Chamber Awards. As a result of these successes, Nigel was selected to serve as a director of the British Chambers of Commerce in 2008.
In 2011 he stepped down as CEO of Sheffield Chamber to build an extensive portfolio of Non-Executive positions and together with partners, to lead an international business capacity building company, Universal Projects. He was a World Chamber Award Finalist for a record third time in 2013 in recognition of his work in designing and leading the Greentouch Cambodia project on behalf of the World Bank to promote and embed sound environmental management practices among the country’s business community.
In 2015 he was the recipient of the Council of British Chambers of Commerce in Europe’s Special Award for Excellence. Nigel is also a Board Member and Head of Practice of Leoron PDI one of the world’s fastest growing professional development companies and has lectured for the UN, World Bank, EU, Eurochambres and the World Chambers Federation in a number of subject areas including leadership, change management, corporate strategy, business internationalisation, organisational development and operations management.
Nigel is also an Associate Lecturer for London School of Business & Finance, the University of Law, IBAT College Dublin and a Visiting Lecturer for the University of Hull Business School and in 2021 was nominated for the UK Leadership in Education Resources Award. He has an MBA from the University of Hull specialising in International Corporate Strategy and operates out of offices in London and Dubai.
