Thomas Lingard

Experience

13 years broad based leadership, communications and commercial experience gained in executive and non-executive roles with leading organisations in both the private and NGO sector, including Unilever, Green Alliance and Oxfam.

Skills

• Excellent interpersonal, relationship building and communications skills
• Proven team and organisational leadership skills
• Organisational strategy design and implementation skills
• High level of commercial acumen (ACMA)
• Tri-lingual (English, French, Italian)

• University of Durham

  • Applied Ethics
  • Ethical Issues in the History of Medicine
  • French Translation
  • French Languague
  • Italian Language
  • Italian Literature

1. Corporate Social Responsibility
2. Sustainability
3. Community Investment
4. Cross-sector Partnerships
5. Global Governance
6. Sustainable Development
7. Climate Change
8. Environmental Policy
9. Organizational Development
10. Stakeholder Engagement
11. Sustainability Reporting
12. International Development
13. Corporate Communications
14. Social Entrepreneurship
15. Strategic Communications

• Royal Society of Arts

  Fellow
  • 2003 to Present

• World Economic Forum

  Global Agenda Council on Governance for Sustainability
  • August 2012 to Present

• World Business Council for Sustainable Development

  Liason Delegate and member of the Operations Committee
  • September 2010 to Present

• The STEPS Centre, Institute of Development Studies

  International Advisory Committee
  • September 2011 to Present

  The STEPS Centre carries out interdisciplinary research projects and policy engagement activities with partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
  
  Bringing social and natural scientists together across development studies and science and technology studies, we work in and across the areas of food/agriculture, health/disease, water/sanitation and energy/climate change to generate new thinking and practical solutions.
  
  Rapid environmental and social changes – such as climate change, population explosion, urbanisation and globalised economics – are posing urgent practical, moral and political challenges across the globe. Consequently the core development challenges of alleviating poverty and inequity are increasingly complex.
  
  Our work looks at how pathways to sustainability – linking environmental integrity with social justice – can be built in today’s complex, dynamic world.
  
  For instance, how might African farmers meet their needs in the context of climate change? How can we understand and address emergent epidemic diseases? And how might poor people access water in the expanding fringes of Asia’s megacities?
  
  To help deal with these questions we have developed a novel pathways approach as a guide to thinking and action around emerging sustainability challenges.
  

• The Partnering Initiative

  Advisory Board
  • 2012 to Present

  The Partnering Initiative works with individuals, organisations, partnerships and systems to inspire, promote and support the use of cross-sector partnerships worldwide.

• Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA)

  • Chartered Institute of Management Accountants
  • 2004

• Climate Change: the risks we can't afford to take (Editor)

  • Green Alliance
  • 2009
  Authors: Thomas Lingard, Martin Rees, Paul Ekins, Steve Holliday, Ed Mayo, Stephen Hale

  In this series of five thought pieces, five leading commentators were asked to set out exactly how they see the risks that we face and why in their view they are risks we can't afford to take.

• Conservatism in a Changing Climate (Editor)

  • Green Alliance
  • February 2, 2010
  Authors: Thomas Lingard, Ben Caldecott, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, Peter Ainsworth, Tom Burke, Professor Dieter Helm, Greg Clark

  The environmental movement has been catapulted into the heart of UK politics over the last four years. David Cameron and his ’Vote Blue, Go Green‘ mantra has helped to make environmentalism politically mainstream. The additional attention given to environmental problems within the centre-right is encouraging, but there is much still to do to explore the ideological rationale for action on the environment.
  
  With this publication, Conservatism in a changing climate: security, prosperity and a low carbon future, we aim to contribute to that debate, showing that the environment is not simply another issue to be addressed, but a context which brings additional saliency and urgency to traditional centre-right concerns such as security, technology, prosperity and efficiency.

• Creating a Corporate Responsibility Culture

  • in 'CSR From Aspiration to Application' (Kakabadse A. & Morsing, M.), Palgrave Macmillan
  • January 17, 2006
  Authors: Thomas Lingard

  Paper published as part of a collection of international papers aiming to integrate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) theory, research and practice. Shareholder and stakeholder concerns, as well as governance, boardroom and environmental considerations, are explored alongside an examination of the challenges facing managers in regulating and reporting CSR application. The book as a whole makes recommendations for CSR performance enhancement that are complimented by insightful enterprise and government case studies on CSR sustainability. The discussion stretches from an intellectual overview of varying sustainability perspectives to capturing the operational experiences and policy considerations of the individual manager, the enterprise and state.

• Unilever’s strategic response to sustainable development and its implications for public affairs professionals

  • Journal of Public Affairs, Vol 12, Issue 3, p224, Wiley-Blackwell
  • July 20, 2012
  Authors: Thomas Lingard

  Unilever is often cited as one of the organisations that is most sophisticated in thinking about and responding strategically to the range of global trends we tend to put under the heading ‘sustainable development’. This paper explores the rationale in Unilever for doing this and looks at the implications it has for Public Affairs. Taking a step back from this and thinking about the historical role of the public affairs professional, and about what Unilever and others are beginning to do, the changing role of the public affairs professional is discussed.

• Progressive business must speak out and collaborate for a sustainable future

  • The Guardian
  • May 14, 2012
  Authors: Thomas Lingard

  Silence on climate change and sustainability is not an abstention from the debate, it's an abdication of responsibility for which no amount of other corporate good deeds can compensate.

• English

  (Native or bilingual proficiency)

• French

  (Professional working proficiency)

• Italian

  (Professional working proficiency)

Interests:

opera, photography, languages, modern art

Groups and Associations:

Friends of Covent Garden, Associate Member of the Glyndebourne Festival Society, The Wine Society, British Film Institute, Greenpeace, London Cycling Campaign, Tate Members, The Opera Group

• 
  Bay Area Sustainability/CSR Professionals & Social Entrepreneurs
• 
  BusinessGreen.com Group - UK green professionals
• 
  CIMA Members (ACMA / FCMA / CGMA)
• 
  CSR Europe
• 
  CSR Geneva
• 
  Cambridge Sustainability Network (CSN) Group
• 
  Climate Policy Group
• 
  Corporate Communications Executive Network
• 
  Durham University Alumni
• 
  Energy & Utilities Network
• 
  Ethical Corporation - CSR, Sustainability, Business Ethics
• 
  Forces for Change Members Group from Business in the Community
• 
  International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
• 
  OXFAM / EX-FAM
• 
  PUBLIC AFFAIRS &SOCIAL PUBLIC RELATIONS
• 
  Sustainability professionals - Guardian Sustainable Business
• 
  The Partnering Initiative
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  Transforming Business for Tomorrow's World: Corporation 2020
• 
  UNILEVER PEOPLE
• 
  Unilever Alumni Network (7000+ Global members!)
• 
  United Nations Global Compact
• 
  United Nations Sustainable Development
• 
  base cities