Darren Hanson

Darren’s career has successfully combined academia and the corporate world, balancing senior executive corporate and consulting roles with teaching EMBA/MBA students, delivering executive education, and having P&L responsibility at leadership centres at top business schools in Asia and Europe. He gained valuable executive development experience early in his career as Head of Management Development in the Slab & Plate Division of BHP Billiton where he pioneered experiential learning, evidence-based training design and an internal consulting model.

Darren left to complete his PhD in Management and simultaneously co-designed the Public Sector Management Program, which is still being run today. On completing his PhD, he joined leading global executive search company, Heidrick and Struggles where he was Partner in Charge of a start-up Leadership Advisory Practice in Asia. Darren launched and built the new Asian practice from Singapore, building a network of leadership experts advising corporates on succession planning, talent management and leadership development across Asia. In 2008, Darren became a full-time leadership professor in Singapore, first at NTU and then at NUS where he overhauled the Centre for Strategic Leadership, transforming it into a vibrant source of corporate engagement for the university.

Based on this success, he was hired by NEOMA Business School in France, newly formed from two previously competing business schools, as a full professor to establish a Leadership Centre based in Paris and head up Global Partnerships with corporates from around the world. The Centre for Leadership & Effective Organisations (CLEO) was a critical catalyst for successfully merging the two schools under a unified centre of excellence. Darren has maintained his connection with business schools throughout his career, teaching corporate executive programs and MBA courses at many of the world’s top business schools, including the Australian Graduate School of Management, NUS, NTU, SMU, INSEAD, ESC Toulouse, NEOMA Business School, ESEC Barcelona and Chicago University-Booth School of Business. This has given him a unique insight into the diverse factors driving success for business schools in Australia, Asia and Europe.

Companies

• Managing Partner Global Leadership (2018)
• Global Corporate Partnerships Director / Head of Leadership Centre/Professor of Leadership NEOMA Business School (2015 — 2018)
• Visiting Professor, (SMU executive education strategy ) Singapore Management University (2017 — 2017)
• Executive Director (Head) - Centre for Strategic Leadership & Associate Professor of Leadership National University of Singapore (2012 — 2015)
• Director Open Executive Education Programs & Senior Fellow /Senior Lecturer (OB & Leadership) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2008 — 2012)
• Partner - Leadership Advisory Heidrick & Struggles (2007 — 2008)
• Professor: (Toulouse Business School MBA) Leadership/Change Mgt. TBS Education (2003 — 2007)
• Professor: Management / Change Management / Communication Ecole d'Ingenieurs de PURPAN (2003 — 2007)
• Adjunct Faculty: Management / Change Management AGSM @ UNSW Business School (2000 — 2007)

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Monash University