I accepted the deanship of Manchester Business School in late 2006, not only because of its history but also because of the history of the city. My academic and professional interests and expertise were in technology, innovation, and economic development and for 200 years Manchester had been a case study in the application of technology to economic development. Even from across the Atlantic I understood that innovation was in the lifeblood of the Manchester region, and that the University of Manchester (specifically, the two universities that merged in 2004 – the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and the Victoria University of Manchester) was among the UK’s most pioneering centres of higher research, teaching, and engagement.

So when asked to write about an individual who has had a significant impact on business and the economy, some of the university’s best-known figures sprang to mind: Ernest Rutherford, whose research in the early decades of the 20th century became the foundation for atomic physics; Tom Kilburn and Sir Freddie Williams, who in 1948 built “Baby”, the world’s first computer; or more recently, Professor Roland Smith, who taught and served as chancellor at UMIST from 1966-2002, and Sir Terry Leahy, an alumnus who catapulted Tesco to international prominence. Each of these could have been the subject of this column. Certainly, we understand the fundamental effect that Mr Rutherford’s science has had on business – creating new sources of energy, new branches of medicine, and more. Similarly, we appreciate that we are now very much in the computer age. Roland Smith pioneered marketing as a discipline in the UK. And Sir Terry Leahy is one of the UK’s most influential contemporary business leaders.