Team
Professor Monder Ram OBE
Director of Centre
Monder Ram is Professor of Small Business and Director of CREME at De Montfort University. He has extensive experience of working in, researching and acting as a consultant to ethnic minority businesses. He is a leading authority on ethnic minority entrepreneurship research and has published widely on the subject. Professor Monder Ram’s work has been supported by grants from a full range of research funding bodies; including research councils, government departments, regional and local agencies and the private sector. Learn more
Liz Frost
Centre Manager
Liz Frost is responsible of managing the day to day running of CREME. Her role includes the facilitation and support for submission of research proposals and research projects.
She is responsible for organising all of CREME’s events including the Annual Ethnic Minority Business Conference. Liz is also involved in developing CREME’s stakeholder engagement and communication activities. Learn more
Researchers
Brahim Herbane
Principal Lecturer
Dept. of Strategy and Management
Brahim is a Principal Lecturer in Strategic Management and Business Continuity Management in the Department of Strategy and Management. He is the Programme Director for the Faculty’s Executive MBA Programme and is module leader for Strategic Management and Crisis Management modules within the faculty. A graduate of the University of Leeds, Dr Herbane’s subsequent doctoral research focused upon strategic management concepts in the UK automotive components industry. Learn more
Ian Worthington
Professor of Corporate Sustainability
Deputy Director of Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship
Professor Ian Worthington is Professor of Corporate Sustainability in the Department of Strategy and Management at De Montfort University and Deputy-Director of CREME.
His teaching and research interests span a number of areas connected to CSR including small firm ethics, supplier diversity and environmental issues in business and he has published widely in these areas. Learn more
Jane Glover
Research Fellow
Jane is a Research Fellow at CREME. Jane’s research interests lie in entrepreneurship and small family business. She is also interested in rural sociology, focusing on non-financial reasons to be in business and the social, cultural and symbolic importance of small family firms. She is particularly interested in how small agricultural family firms have shown particular resilience and entrepreneurial tendencies, when compared to other family businesses, throughout a long history of disruptive change, ranging from changes in how the business is operated to unforeseen natural disasters. Learn more
Kassa Woldesenbet
Research Fellow
Dr Kassa Woldesenbet, in his role of Research Fellow, and is currently working on a number of research projects at CREME. His research interests cuts across disciplinary areas such as entrepreneurship, small businesses, strategic management and knowledge. His work has been published in journals and presented at well-known international conferences. Learn more
Martin Beckinsale
Senior Lecturer
Dept. of Strategy and Management
Dr. Martin Beckinsale is a Senior Lecturer & Researcher in Strategy and Management at Leicester Business School (DMU). As a module leader, his teaching focus relates to EBusiness, Service Operations and Business Research Issues and Analysis. He is a research team member of CREME (Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship) and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and ISBE (The Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship). Currently he is the ICT and EBusiness track chair for the ISBE Conference. Learn more
Natalia Vershinina
Principal Lecturer
Dept of Strategy and Management
Natalia is a Principal Lecturer in Strategy and Management and a Programme Leader for MSc International Business and Entrepreneurship Programme. She is also a Visiting Senior Lecturer at School of Management, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. Learn more
Yulia Rodionova
Senior Lecturer
Dept of Accounting and Finance
Yulia is a Senior Lecturer in Finance. Together with Dr. Natalia Vershinina, she is currently working on the project “Process and dynamics of self-employment of legal and illegal Ukrainian immigrants in London”, sponsored through Faculty Seed Corn Funding. Yulia is a holder of the Early Career Research Award for 2010-2011. Learn more
Visiting Professors
Professor Paul Edwards is visiting Professor at De Montfort University and has joined the CREME team to develop its work on migrant businesses. Learn more
After a long history of collaborating with CREME, Professor Richard Roberts was appointed a Visiting Professor at De Montfort University in 2011. Richard is SME (small and medium sized enterprises) Market Analysis Director at Barclays Bank in the UK, which has around 580,000 SME customers. Learn more
Professor Trevor Jones is one of the UK’s foremost researchers on ethnic minority entrepreneurship. He is recognised as a pioneer in the field, and was responsible for the first systematic study of ethnic minority businesses in the UK. Learn more