Small Business Charter: Accreditation & Reaccreditation Workshop

Siân has worked in 3 UK business schools in senior management position with over 13 years’ experience ; most recently as Associate Dean, Enterprise and Innovation at Cardiff School of Management and Head of Newport Business School. She was a member of the QAA Benchmark Panel for Business and Management. Prior to entering HE, she gained wide-ranging experience over more than 25 years in industry, performing key education and training, sales and IT senior management roles at UK and European levels for a variety of international IT and financial services companies, including Barclays Bank and Oracle.

Sian has extensive experience of the CABS Small Business Charter beginning with taking her school to be the first business school in Wales to be accredited. Sian chairs assessment panels, conducts induction training for new SBC board members, as well as training sessions for SBC assessors and for schools seeking assessment and reassessment. She is a member of the Small Business Charter board.

Alongside her executive roles, Siân has built up significant experience as a non-executive director and trustee including roles at Cardiff University, Glas Cymru, Girlguiding Cymru, Institute of Directors Wales, Chartered Institute of Management, United World Colleges and Seren Publishing.

Siân is a Vice President of Cardiff Business Club, a Chartered Manager, a Fellow of the Leadership Academy for HE and a Certified Management and Business Educator.

Siân holds a first degree in English, an MBA with distinction, a postgraduate certificate in education and many professional certificates in computing, technology and professional skills development. She has recently been awarded a Doctorate in Business Administration which focuses on the role of knowledge in the organisation design of universities.

Since the launch of the Small Business Charter in 2013, Joe has been an Assessor, conducting numerous assessments and reassessments, and he previously served as a voting member of the SBC board.

He is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader with a rich background in management and finance. Previously, Joe was the Managing Director of Halls Bakery Limited, a 90-year-old family business in Lancashire that employed 16 people and achieved an annual turnover of £1 million. With over 30 years of experience in small and medium-sized enterprises, he has excelled as a Finance Director across various sectors, refining his expertise in fund management, budget development, and the creation of effective business plans and KPIs.

Joe has also held several Non-Executive Director positions, notably serving over nine years at Bako Group Ltd, where he concluded his tenure as Chair for six years. This co-operative operates from three regional depots and boasts a turnover of approximately £200 million.

In addition to his business endeavors, Joe is committed to community service as a Trustee for Community Transport, a charity based in Yorkshire, and he serves as Managing Director of CML Ltd, the charity's trading arm.

As a founding Entrepreneur in Residence at Lancaster University Management School and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Association of Business Schools, he imparts valuable insights through his undergraduate and postgraduate entrepreneurship classes.

Dr Emily Beaumont is an Associate Professor of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship and Head of REF at the University of Gloucestershire.  As an academic, Emily has dedicated her teaching and research to the disciplines of enterprise, entrepreneurship and employability, and the quality of her work in this area saw her voted to be President of Enterprise Educators UK (2021-2023) and awarded with Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, and Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.