Dr Sionade Robinson

Overview

Sionade is an alumna of City University and formally joined the Faculty of Management in the Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School in 2010, to take up the role of Course Director for the Full Time MBA Programme.

Prior to re-starting her academic career, Sionade had worked for many years as a management consultant. Her specialism is leading clients to improved financial performance through insight into sources of client value, demonstrating client value through key behaviours and effectively measuring progress and impact.

Sionade began her career with Boston based consultancy The Forum Corporation in strategy implementation for clients such as British Airways, the BBC and BP. She also worked for operational improvement consultancy Celerant, now Hitachi Consulting before founding her own firm which advised blue chip companies on implementing strategies of service excellence, customer loyalty and strategic management of customer relationships. Her clients included Barclays, Citroen, HP, Virgin Atlantic, Aviva, the RAC and Prudential. Macmillan published her book Customer Loyalty: A Guide for Time Travellers in 2005, in several languages.

Sionade has been at Bayes for 10 years, leading the globally ranked MBA Programme as Associate Dean and developing and teaching a range of marketing, consulting and leadership courses on MBA, MSc and Undergraduate programmes as well for Executive Education. She introduced a variety of MBA course innovations and enhancements to support recruitment, rankings, and employability by working closely with faculty colleagues and experts in professional services. She founded and leads the annual MBA London Symposium, widely regarded as the flagship MBA elective which generates extensive global profile for the programme and school.

In 2019 Sionade's sabbatical research focused on explorers, exploration and the creation and capture of new value in networks, exchange, knowledge, technology, leadership, and learning. Sionade's diverse research resources range from historic accounts of expeditions to interviews with contemporary explorers of many kinds and she has developed a variety of new teaching materials focusing on the value of developing an Explorer's Mindset. She practices what she preaches - in recent years she's gathered students, alumni and colleagues on expeditions trekking to a lost city deep in the Colombian jungle, climbed mountains and camped at 20 below in the Arctic Circle. Sionade is affiliated with the Centre for Innovation and Disruption and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

From January 2020, Sionade was appointed to the role of Associate Dean of People and Culture to lead an increased focus on EDI in the School and enjoys serving, with excellent cross institutional colleagues, on a variety of the University's EDI committees.

Qualifications

PhD and BSc Hons (Systems and Management Science).

Employment

1. Associate Dean, People and Culture, City, University London, 2020 – present
2. AMBA Accreditation Panellist, Association of MBAs, 2020 – present
3. External Examiner, Exeter Business School, Sep 2019 – present
4. Internal Examiner, British University Vietnam, Jan 2018 – Jan 2021
5. Associate Dean, City, University London, 2012 – 2018
6. Course Director, City, University London, 2009 – 2013

Expertise

Primary topics

• Entrepreneurship
• Knowledge & Learning
• Leadership
• Management Learning
• Storytelling

Additional topics

• Gender & Diversity Management
• Management
• Management Consulting
• Management Development
• Marketing
• Organizational Culture

Industries

• education, training & employment agencies
• financial services
• marketing
• professional services
• retailing
• service
• utilities

Publications by category