Paul Chapman

Dr Paul Chapman is a Fellow in Operations Management at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Paul has a number of roles at Oxford, where he is Executive Director of the BT Centre for Major Programmes Management, Director of the MSc in Major Programme Management, Academy Director for the Major Projects Leadership Academy for the UK Government and a member of the Oxford Institute for Retail Management. Much of Paul’s work is focused on delivering performance improvement, which he has experience of applying in the automotive, aerospace and retail sectors.

At Saïd, Paul directs executive education programmes that have a particular emphasis on leadership or have a significant ‘major programmes’ content, including the MSc in Major Programme Management, MMPM, of which he is Director of Graduate Studies. His teaching on these programmes includes the Managing Performance course on the MMPM, and the Operations Management course on the School’s EMBA. Paul also directs a programme on Leadership for HEC, the Paris-based business school, and a multi-module High Potential Directors Programme for Standard Bank as well as leadership programmes for the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation of India. Elsewhere, Paul contributes to the Danish Centre for Leadership’s Advanced Business Development Programme; leads the International Supply Chain and Operations Management course on the EMBA at the Copenhagen Business School,where he has twice been elected teacher of year; and guest lectures at the University of Warwick, UK, Cranfield School of Management, UK and SKEMA Business School in Sophia Antipolis, France.

Before joining Oxford, Paul was a Senior Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management and before that a Senior Research Fellow with the Warwick Manufacturing Group at Warwick University. For Cranfield, he directed custom programmes for AstraZeneca and NYK Logistics and taught on programmes for Maersk, BAT, L’Oréal and Coca Cola HBC.

Paul’s research interest is focused on mechanisms for benefit delivery, especially the role of collaboration. This takes concepts at the heart of operations management, especially engineering and production, and blends them with other insights. Paul’s work in the automotive, aerospace and retail sectors has led to significant reductions in new product development time. In Europe’s grocery retail sector this work has delivered more than US$3 billion in savings in recent years. Paul applies this capability as a consultant for a range of organisations across Europe and the Americas,and occasionaly Asia and Africa.

Paul has BEng (Hons), MSc and Engineering Doctorate (EngD) degrees from the University of Warwick.