Tom Elsworth

• Organisational Behaviour, Leadership and the Management of Change

This module focuses on understanding the processes and theory underlying general management

Capstone projects for MSc and MBA in general management

Over nearly 50 years in business Tom has acquired a very wide range of practical management experience. His roles have included Company Secretary, Head of Employee Relations, Head of Public Relations and Head of Brussels Office all in multi million £ organisations (Government funded and Commercial) as well as Directorships of SMEs and the family firm.

Within the context of this general experience much of Tom's work has been in business development and external liaison roles. He started out on the latter, being appointed in 1975 to work at the British Embassy in Washington DC to liaise between the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and various US Government research organisations. This type of work developed over the years, as the UKAEA mission evolved, becoming heavily involved in liaison with EU Commission organisations and research organisations operated by EU member states. It also developed in an increasingly commercial direction as UKAEA became a contract applied research organisation and then started to be prepared for privatisation (as AEA Technology). This preparation process included reorganisation into strategic business units and Tom became Company Secretary of one of them responsible for all the non technical management of the SBU; HR, external affairs, PR, business development and commercial and contracts management.

Alongside this background in business development and external affairs Tom has worked also as a consultant, both employed and freelance, focusing on a range of management issues including communications (internal and external) and organisational analysis.

Once AEA Technology was fully set up Tom moved on to head a marketing office in Brussels responsible for opening up and developing relationships across the full range of organisations to be found there. These include not only the very wide ranging Directorates of the EU Commission but also governmental representation offices of all member states and the corporate liaison office of very many major European and international corporations.

Since moving from the UKAEA in 1998, Tom has taught at Brookes in both the Business School and the School of Technology, together with helping to run the family and other businesses, specialising in the external relations of science and engineering based organisations.

Tom is also the author of a hand book for strategic analysis called Understanding Strategic Analysis.  It was published by Routledge in 2023.  A follow up has been commisioned by Routledge, it will be a similar handbook but for line managers called Managing in Organisations.  It is due to be published in 2024.