PROF CHRIS BOVAIRD:

Associate Practitioner,
Corporate Strategy Development

Professor Chris Bovaird is a university tutor and distinguished business practitioner who works with companies of all sizes on their financial management, business planning, investment strategy and acquisition policies. His consulting experience extends to the UK, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Korea, the USA, the United Arab Emirates and Canada.

Chris's banking career began in New York in 1981, and included periods in Canada with both Chemical Bank and The Bank of Nova Scotia, where he was engaged in project financing and debt re-structuring, in addition to his extensive corporate finance responsibilities.

In 1986 he joined The University of Stirling in Scotland as course tutor for their 'MBA in Banking' programme. In the same year, Chris was awarded the TSB Research Fellowship by Britain's TSB Bank (now part of Lloyds TSB), and spent two years advising the bank on its strategy for entering the UK venture capital investment market.

In 1988 he joined the strategic development team of National and Provincial Building Society, a major British savings and loan institution. Eighteen months later he was appointed Group Head of Business Development. Based in London, Chris headed the team responsible for performing the strategic and financial analyses of the company's acquisition and diversification plans.

From 1991 - 1994 Chris lectured on Finance, Business Strategy and Consulting at the Centre for Enterprise and Management Development, Stirling University, UK. Also in 1994, he was appointed as visiting professor in the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

He holds a degree in Economics from Queen's University Canada, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario, and a Master of Science from Stirling University in Scotland. He is the author of two books on business finance and economic development (“Introduction to Venture Capital Finance” and “Enterprising Capital”) as well as numerous articles for leading business and management publications.

Since 1995 Chris Bovaird has tutored MBA students on management, consulting, and business strategy in the Faculty of Management at the University of Toronto. Concurrently, Chris is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, at the University of Waterloo.

Chris has extensive experience in corporate strategy development and business transformation consultancy for major blue chip global companies both in North America and elsewhere.