SQW staff bring extensive experience to their assignments, with backgrounds in academia, national and local government, industry, and development agencies. Short profiles of our Directors and Associate Directors are given below.
Chris Green – Chief Executive
Chris Green is Chief Executive of SQW Group, the parent company of SQW and Oxford Innovation and interim Managing Director of SQW Ltd. He joined SQW during the early stages of its development in 1986, and he was Managing Director of SQW Ltd for eight years before becoming Group Chief Executive in 2006. He led a management buy out of SQW in 2004, and negotiated the merger with Oxford Innovation (OI) in 2006, which brought OI into the SQW Group.
Chris has 35 years experience of economic development and planning work in public and private sectors, including 25 years in consulting and 10 years in local government in the UK and Australia. He has experience in virtually all aspects of the firm’s work, and has undertaken project work throughout the UK and internationally. He was responsible for setting up SQW’s office in Hong Kong and has led many large, complex and multi-disciplinary consultancy contracts in the UK and elsewhere for public and private sector clients. Chris is a long-term member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.
Robin Brighton – Director
Robin Brighton specialises in higher education, research policy and innovation. He has worked on all aspects of higher education including teaching and learning, student demand, research and knowledge transfer. Robin has extensive experience in programme evaluation and feasibility studies and has also undertaken organisational and strategy reviews for public bodies and research and higher education institutes. Clients include government departments, the higher education funding and research councils and individual higher education institutions and he has undertaken higher education and research related assignment for regional agencies, and other local bodies. He is an economist by training and his initial career was as a university lecturer. Robin is a member of SQW’s Management Board and Business Development Group.
Christine Doel – Director
Christine Doel is a Director of SQW and Head of Markets. She joined SQW after completing a PhD in economic geography at the University of Cambridge. Subsequently she has specialised in sustainable economic and spatial development at local, sub-national and national scales. Within this context, her particular interests include analysis, strategy and implementation planning across functional urban areas. She has also developed a strong track record in sustainable regeneration in both rural and coastal areas, recognising the strong links to environmental conditions and processes. Her clients include local authorities, private sector developers, sub-regional partnerships, regional agencies and organisations, and central government.
Richard Hindle – Director
Richard Hindle’s expertise in economic development, as a practitioner, designer and evaluator, includes market feasibility studies, project appraisals and plans, programme evaluations and organisation reviews. He focuses on business development/innovation and all aspects of area competitiveness, working for local authorities and partnerships, government and non-governmental organisations, in the UK and internationally. Recent projects led by Richard include the long-term evaluation of ERDF/other public investment in business-facing activities at the new University of York campus, local economic assessments in Merseyside and northern Lincolnshire, Regional Growth Fund bids in the North Yorkshire and the West Midlands, evaluations of tourism programmes in Yorkshire and the North West, an ‘action-oriented’ evaluation of Liverpool’s ‘Greening the City’ initiative, and local/regional economic impact studies on forthcoming changes in UK defence.
Stephen Lucas – Director
Stephen Lucas is a an economist with experience of advising public and private sector clients on large, complex and multi-disciplinary economic development and regeneration projects. He is particularly experienced in helping urban authorities understand what they need to do to improve their competitive position in the international marketplace for investment and talent. He also regularly provides property developers with advice and expert witness evidence for major urban regeneration schemes including: the Croydon Gateway scheme in 2007 for Schroders and Stanhope plc; the Royal Clarence Yard scheme at Gosport for Berkeley Homes; and Winslow Urban Extension for Gladman Developments. He has recently advised Gladman Developments on two housing schemes (where he provided expert witness evidence on future housing demand) and funding advice to Miller Developments regarding the Omega mixed use scheme at Warrington (where he helped prepare JESSICA and Regional Growth Fund bids). He also recently advised Telereal Trillium on opportunities arising from the likely re-organisation of central government’s administrative office estate.
Bruce Macdonald – Associate Director
Bruce Macdonald manages SQW’s Edinburgh office. Bruce is an economist with a wide range of experience in evaluation, appraisal and economic impact analysis built up since joining the firm in 1994. He has led projects for the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, VisitScotland, UK Trade and Investment, the Big Lottery, regional agencies and local authorities. His experience and interests lie mainly around project and programme appraisal, evaluation and socio-economic impact, and include research on inward investment and business internationalisation, access to finance, tourism, community development and culture. He has undertaken studies for major events such as Glasgow’s bid to host the Commonwealth Games and the Edinburgh Festivals, as well as work to quantify the economic benefits of cycling and evaluations of important initiatives supporting technology, skills and regeneration.
David Mack-Smith – Associate Director
David Mack-Smith has extensive experience in strategy development, business planning, economic impact modelling and evaluation. Having previously worked for Analysys Consulting and BT, he leads SQW’s activity in the area of Information and Communications Technology, and is Head of Knowledge Management for the firm. David has led numerous high profile assignments, including our assistance to the Scottish Government in accelerating broadband roll-out in Scotland, research for BIS into online and offline delivery of business support, and our evaluation of the Home Access Programme in England. His particular interests include digital inclusion, ‘next generation’ broadband, the economic impact of ICT, and public policy towards e-business.
Marian Morris – Associate Director
Marian Morris joined SQW in May 2010, having worked at NFER for more than 20 years. Her areas of expertise are in the evaluation of national, regional and local education policy and practice, and in devising systematic and replicable data collection and analysis frameworks. Since joining SQW, she has directed research in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, including evaluation work in community development settings, methodological studies and evaluations of educational intervention programmes. Her wider portfolio of research interests includes careers education and guidance, widening participation and environmental education. Marian is a regular keynote speaker at national, regional and local conferences and has presented research and expert witness papers at international conferences and seminars. She is a member of the Royal Society Advisory Group for the State of the Nation Reports.
Simon Pringle – Director
Simon Pringle brings 20 years professional experience as an advisor and economic analyst. He specialises in the following areas:
• economic performance and competitiveness analysis and improvement, particularly at sub-regional and city-regional levels
• strategy development and action planning, in both spatial and sectoral contexts
• programme/project design, appraisal, impact assessment, and wider evaluation
• Institutional capability and capacity development.
Prior to moving into the consultancy sector, Simon was a Management Development Trainee with the Department of Trade and Industry, where he achieved comprehensive exposure to the Department’s policy-making and programme delivery functions. He worked widely with Minsters and officials at a senior level, and has worked in both Whitehall and the English Regions.
Graham Thom – Associate Director
Graham Thom first joined SQW in Edinburgh and worked there for five years before moving to be office manager in London for three years. For much of this time he led the firm’s work in skills and employment. He then became Director of Ekos/Gen Consulting in Glasgow for almost four years, where his work continued to focus on the skills area. Graham re-joined SQW in January 2008 since when he has again led a range of skills assignment, including work for Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council, local authorities, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Wellcome Trust. In addition, he now leads our work around the personalisation of public services including directing multi-year evaluations of the Individual Budgets pilots for the Department for Education, and of the Common Assessment Framework for the Department of Health. He is also directing a three year evaluation of the Integrated Family Support Service in Wales.