The David Petley One: Academic leadership and learning from landslides

Dave Petley is VC of Hull, and alongside his leadership role he maintains an active academic life in the field of landslides. He’s about to move - towards the end of the year - to become VC of one of the UK’s largest universities, NTU. 

I was delighted to get this chance to talk to Dave at this point in the year, as he prepares to leave his existing role well, to arrive well into the new organisation, and to handle conflicts of interest in the interim.  It’s a fascinating conversation, about Dave’s background and what makes him who he is as a leader. He talks about how he’s led major changes at Hull, and built the right team to do it.  He also talks about the importance of education and of the often unseen and under-appreciated complexity of being an academic leader. 

It’s a really fascinating chat - of value to everyone wanting to understand university leadership, and to folks interested in organisational leadership more broadly. And we take a look at landslides too, and what we can learn from them about organisational life.  I hope you enjoy this one.