Mr Stuart Young
Deputy Director, Centre for Defence Acquisition
Location: Centre for Defence Acquisition, Vincent Centre
E: s.young@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0) 1793 78 5051
Department of Management and Security
Current activities
Since joining Cranfield University at the Defence Academy in 2008, Stuart has been responsible for the development and delivery of courses supporting the UK Ministry of Defence’s ‘Defence Acquisition Management Education Programme’. These include:
• Defence Acquisition Management (DAM) MSc – Sourcing Strategies and the Industrial Interface Module
• Acquisition Employment Training
• Defence Strategic Commercial Course
• Defence Acquisition Management (DAM)MSc – International Acquisition
His responsibilities also include the development and delivery of the acquisition elements of other courses including the Systems Engineering for Defence Capability MSc and the Supply Chain Management courses. In addition, he lectures at a number of overseas institutions, is undertaking research into acquisition strategies and facilitates workshops across a number of organisations within the Ministry of Defence.
Background
Stuart Young joined the Royal Navy in 1977 as a Marine Engineer Officer and was educated to Masters-level at the Royal Naval Engineering College in Plymouth. In addition to range of operational appointments at sea, he has undertaken a number of acquisition-related posts in the Ministry of Defence. These included three years as the Defence Equipment Marine Engineer with the Defence Staff at the British Embassy in Washington, where he was responsible for liaison with the US Department of Defence on a number of key warship programmes. He was also the Electric Ship Programme Manager in the Defence Procurement Agency with direct responsibility for a major UK-French technology development programme. This subsequently led to the selection of innovative technologies for the propulsion systems on the new Type 45 Destroyer and the Future Carrier.
More recently he was a key member of the team developing the Defence Logistics Organisation’s strategic plan for achieving defence logistics transformation. This was followed by a period as Business Manager for the Defence Electronic Commerce Service, a Public-Private Partnership between the MoD and Capgemini to provide a range of e-business services to the MoD. In his final appointment in the Royal Navy he worked in the Defence Management and Leadership Centre at Shrivenham, where he was responsible for senior management development programmes, with particular emphasis on the development of acquisition skills to meet the requirements of the Defence Acquisition Change Programme.
Following his retirement from the Royal Navy in April 2008, Stuart joined Cranfield University as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Defence Acquisition, where he has a particular interest in the relationship between the MoD and Industry across the supply chain and the development of agile strategies for major acquisition programmes.
Stuart is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology. He is married, with two expensive children, one a doctor and the other at university. In his spare time he is a keen dinghy sailor and dabbles in photography.
Selected publications
2010: ‘United Kingdom Warship Procurement Strategies: Accident or Design?’ Claxton Papers (2010). Queens University, Kingston, Canada.
2009: ‘Delivering Capability within a Capability Management and Partnering context’, presented at Defence Partnerships Conference, January 2009.
2007: ‘Defence Acquisition Change – Developing the Skills and Behaviours’, RUSI Defence Systems (Oct 07), London.
2001: ‘Electric Warship – The MoD Viewpoint’, Electric Warship Seminar, Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, London.
