Cranfield School of Management

Val is a research consultant and Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management, following a career there as Deputy Director, International Centre for Women Leaders (ICWL), and Reader in the Organizational Behaviour field, specialising in diversity on corporate boards, and barriers and facilitators to board-level careers. Starting her academic career rather late, Val became Gender Editor of The Journal of Business Ethics, Associate Editor of Gender Work & Organization, and published widely in academic & practitioner journals, books and newspapers including The Financial Times. She has been a plenary speaker at international conferences, and was a National Business Awards judge for several years. Recent activities include research for the Davies Commission on women directors, a study of French top corporate boards, a study of directors’ governance roles in Iceland, career workshops for female academics at the University of Lincoln, and lectures for engineers and scientists on profile-building and cv development. She is still actively involved in writing academic papers. Prior to retirement from 2008: Co-initiator with Prof Susan Vinnicombe of annual Female FTSE Studies in 1999, acknowledged as UK’s premier research resource on women directors and leaders. Initiator of similar studies on ethnic minority directors in FTSE 100 companies. Responsible for leading ICWL research activities, including development of project proposals, undertaking of various research studies, reporting research and disseminating findings to academia, policy-makers and practitioners. We worked with a variety of large companies, public sector organisations, policy makers, media and other academic centres both in the UK and internationally.