IFLAS professor is first UK academic invited to attend Harvard leadership programme

The director of the University of Cumbria’s Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) has been selected to join a group of world leaders in business and politics to study the latest leadership approaches at Harvard University.

Professor Jem Bendell

Professor Jem Bendell, named a ‘Young Global Leader’ by the World Economic Forum, will attend the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century programme in Cambridge, USA in March.  

Young Global Leaders are chosen by the forum for having demonstrated leadership for the common good on a global stage, and include people such as Kumi Naidoo (Greenpeace CEO), Hannah Jones (Head of Sustainability at Nike), and Chuka Umunna MP.  The Forum of Young Global Leaders meets on Monday, January 20 in Davos, Switzerland, ahead of the Davos Summit.

Professor Bendell is the first academic from the UK to be accepted onto the programme.

He said: “I am delighted to be accepted on to this Harvard programme, which gives me the chance to experience the latest approaches to leadership education, and also to share our own approaches in the Lake District.

“Harvard provides elite education to some of the world’s most influential people, in a class-based setting. In Cumbria we have a tradition of experiential learning, and a liking for taking our executive students into nature and to local heritage sites, to stimulate their reflection. I think in future we will see more combinations of such approaches.”

Through a partnership between the Harvard Kennedy School, the Center for Public Leadership and the World Economic Forum, the programme has been developed to expand and enhance the leadership skills of Young Global Leaders, necessary to address the world’s most serious problems. The curriculum considers critical global policy areas such as education, environment, global health, international development, and security, and is provided free of charge due to sponsorship.

As the world’s first professor of sustainability leadership, Professor Bendell recognises the need to blend insights from leadership development and the challenge of sustainable development.

“Ultimately we need to better understand how to lead across borders, for the greater good, not only for our organisation,” he explains.

For more information about IFLAS and the courses it offers, visit www.cumbria.ac.uk/IFLAS