Professor David Oglethorpe

Background

David is a trained environmental and natural resource economist and is also Professor of Environmental Sustainability. Originally based in the land use sector, his research and consulting activities have expanded over the years to examine the wider food supply chain, particularly helping organisations find optimal solutions to multi-dimensional environmental problems, examining trade-offs and synergies between financial and sustainability objectives.

Over the years, David has worked in academia and industry with a range of clients including Tesco, Premier Foods, AB Agri, a large number of agri-food cooperatives and with organisations such as CIPS and CILT. David has also been a member of several high-level advisory bodies and governmental panels, such as the Defra LINK Sustainable Arable Programme Committee, the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit Consultation on Climate Change, the USDA ERS Workshop on Local Food Systems and has served on the Council of the UK Chartered Association of Business Schools. He has led and managed over 30 research and consulting grants over the last 30 years funded by both industry and the major research councils. David represented Cranfield as the only UK Dean on the global Continuous Improvement Review Committee for AACSB, one of our major accrediting bodies, and has chaired around 20 accreditation panels for other business schools around the world.

Current activities

David joined Cranfield University as Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of Cranfield School of Management in September 2019 and before becoming the inaugural Deputy Vice Chancellor of the newly formed Faculty of Business & Management, from May 2024 to March 2025. Until his retirement in July 2025, David now has wider university executive responsibility for international and student recruitment.

Clients

Over the years, David has worked both in academia and industry with a range of clients including Tesco, Premier Foods, AB Agri, a large number of agri-food cooperatives and with organisations such as CIPS and CILT. David has also been a member of several high-level advisory bodies and governmental panels, such as the Defra LINK Sustainable Arable Programme Committee, the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit Consultation on Climate Change, the USDA ERS Workshop on Local Food Systems and has served on the Council of the UK Chartered Association of Business Schools. He has been PI on over 30 research grants over the last 20 years funded by the ERSC, NERC, Defra, SERAD and the British Academy, with a total personal contribution of around £2m.

Publications

• Articles in journals
• Conference papers
• Books