The Middle

David Spencer is the head of marketing for Old Speckled Hen at Greene King, Britain's leading pub retailer and brewer.
He joins Stephen Willson to explore how marketing philosophy and practices inform middle management action.
David discusses the challenges of gaining a deep understanding of customer behaviour in a context that is evolving both in terms of points of purchase and consumption.
This subsequently raises the issues of how such insights are suffused into the organisation to ensure that customer desires are fulfilled in the best possible way.

Gavin Card is the Director of Global Operational Excellence at SHV Energy, the parent company of Calor in the UK. He joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management challenges of aligning supply with demand that is regional and weather dependant. The topics include improving UK-wide performance by abandoning regional P & L accountability and refining KPI's for operational improvement. Gavin draws powerful parallels with his previous experience within GE and the Royal Air Force.

Stephen Willson brings together contributions from 20 executive interviews that support a three stage process that underpins the evolving role of middle managers.
He then investigates the challenges for individuals making the transition between stages and how bosses can support the process.
Stephen is an associate professor at Birmingham City University Business School.

Steve Allen is a partner heading the Birmingham office of Mills & Reeve, a leading UK law firm. He joins host Stephen Willson to explore the challenges of developing a local office and managing teams of lawyers with regional specialisations.

Nick Walkley is the Chief Executive Officer of Homes England, the government's housing accelerator. He joins Stephen Willson to explore the challenges of configuring middle management to achieve public sector and political objectives through private sector developers.