5th International Strategic People Management Workshop

The Laboratory for Strategic People Management of the Business Department , of The University of Sheffield International Faculty, CITY College, organised the 5^th International Strategic People Management Workshop entitled ‘Taking the ‘i’ out of crisis: Leadership and Learning’.

The event took place 10 April 2013 at Auditorium of the main campus to the International Faculty in Thessaloniki. Dr. Leslie Szamosi and Dr. Alexandros Psychogios, Co-Directors of the Laboratory, welcomed the audience to this annual workshop in HRM and dedicated the workshop to the memory of Dr. Sofoklis Saravanidis, a colleague and close friend of the Laboratory. Dr. Saravandis’ family was in attendance.

The workshop featured two keynote speakers, Prof. Dominic Elliot from the University of Liverpool, UK and our own Executive MBA student Ms. Ramona Pergel, Deputy General Director and Member of Board of Directors at E.ON Energie Romania, SA. The speakers focused their presentation on how corporations and their leaders should respond to crisis by and how the depersonalization of crisis has to be reversed. Example were given based on both business and social crises in both the U.K. and Romania.

For the closing discussion, the two keynotes speakers were joined on the expert panel by Mr. Kevin Candee and Ms Feriha Esin who have run international companies and had first had experience in dealing with crisis situations. Moderated by Drs. Szamosi and Psychogios, the audience raised a number of issues and questions generating lively debate among the participants.

The event was well-attended by HR professionals, business executives, academics and many of our Executive MBA students, since it took place during their annual study week in Thessaloniki.