I am a Senior Lecturer in Queen's Management School and Interim Director of the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute.

My research explores leadership, change and organisational development in politically volatile environments. Much of this work has focused on the leadership of change in environments of conflict and peacebuilding. My work corresponds to three main themes: organisational change and the leadership practices that facilitate change; Individual and organisational resilience; and system wide change and grand challenges. I am a Fellow of the Senator Mitchell Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice (QUB) and Chair of the British Academy of Management’s Organisational Transformation Change and Development Special Interest Group.

I am currently working on two books.

The first, Management in Conflict and Transition: the Organisational Dimensions of Building Peace explores the practices of management in the midst of on-going ethno-political conflict and subsequent conflict transformation processes. One of the main objectives of the book is a claification of the emerging sub discipline of managing in environments of conflict and political fragility. It draws on three case examples (Northern Ireland, Kosovo and the Basque region) and asks how organisational managers in the public, private and non-profit sectors engage with ethno political violence and its legacy at a community, organisational and political level. Drawing on interviews and witness seminars with managers and leaders in the three cases, the work provides a background analysis to each case before focusing on emergent themes from the data itself. 

The second, A Duty of Hope: The Anglo-Irish Division and the Work of Peace in Ireland documents the activities, development and impact of the Anglo-Irish Division of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs through the prism of peacebuilding and conflict diplomacy. Drawing on extensive interviews with public officials and those with whom they worked, the book explores the iteration of the Division itself, its relationship with other branches of government and the organisational, political and diplomatic efforts at peacebuilding over almost forty years.