November 2012 For immediate release

Business leaders to go for gold at Leeds Met lecture

Leeds Rugby Chief Executive, Gary Hetherington and Malcolm Brown, coach to Olympic medallists Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee are to speak at an inaugural business lecture at Leeds Metropolitan University.

The public event, which will celebrate the longstanding-association between the University and the Institute of Directors (IoD), will be held at the Rose Bowl at Leeds Mets city campus on Thursday 15 November. Nick Ramshaw, Managing Director at Thompson Brand Partners will also talk at the two hour session which will run from 6-8pm. Entitled The Olympic legacy - how business leaders can still go for gold, the lecture will capitalise on the spirit of 2012, discussing how businesses can learn from the integrity of sport. It will be the first in a series of annual lectures marking the Universitys association with the IoD.

Gary Hetherington, who will discuss his experiences of marrying the businesssports disciplines and share an insight into the challenges of juggling two diverse, interlinked areas of work, commented: Sport and business can learn from each other and it's a fascinating process.

High Performance coach with UK Athletics and British Triathlon, and former Director of Sport at Leeds Met, Malcolm Brown, will discuss the lessons that sport can pass on to commerce.

Nick Ramshaw, who has more than 20 years experience working in leading brand and design agencies in London, Edinburgh and Leeds will highlight how Thompson Brand Partners succeeded in winning Olympic business. He said: Contributing to the Olympics has been a fantastic achievement and experience. As well as working on some exciting projects, we also got to see the whole 2012 movement develop over the last six to seven years and helped build the publics extremely positive feelings towards the Games.

To book your place at this event please email guestspeaker@leedsmet.ac.uk

Ends

For further details please contact Julia Williams in the Communications team at Leeds Met on 0113 812 5978 or email j.t.williams@leedsmet.ac.uk

Notes for editors:

Leeds Metropolitan University has more than 27,000 students and around 3,000 staff. The Vice Chancellor of Leeds Metropolitan University is Professor Susan Price and the Chair of the Board is Lord Woolmer of Leeds. Leeds Metropolitans four faculties are: Arts, Environment and Technology, Business & Law, Health and Social Sciences, and Carnegie.

Leeds Metropolitans heritage can be traced back to the founding of the Mechanics Institute in Leeds in 1824. The Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE) showed that the proportion of Leeds Metropolitan 2010/11 graduates in work, further study or both six months after leaving university was 91.87%.

Libraries and Learning Innovation at Leeds Metropolitan was awarded the CSE standard for the tenth year running in 2012.

In 2012, Leeds Metropolitan was awarded a First in the People & Planet Green League, a league table of environmentally friendly universities, for the sixth consecutive year.