Dr Wendy Shepherd

Background

Wendy is the Director of Individual and Organisational Impact at Cranfield Executive Development.

She has an MBA and Executive Doctorate from Cranfield where her research interest was The Organisational Impact of Executive Development. In 2021 she won the AMBA and BGA doctoral research prize for the impact of her research.

Wendy's insights have informed practice at Cranfield including the development of the Design for Impact approach to impact measurement and management. She is also responsible for launching our Annual Impact Survey and is the lead author of the Cranfield Executive Development Annual Impact Report.

Prior to taking on her specialist role Wendy designed and Programme Directed senior leadership development interventions in the areas of Strategic Management, Sales and Marketing, Careers Development, Leadership and People Management. She has delivered development programmes in Europe, China, Asia Pacific and the USA.

Prior to joining Cranfield, Wendy worked as a Senior Leader in the areas of Human Resources and Sales and Marketing. She has experience of working within the IT, FMCG Manufacturing and Engineering sectors.

Wendy's industry experience includes organisational restructuring from both a human resources and line management perspective; and managing the human resource and sales and marketing issues involved in mergers and acquisitions with a particular focus on integration planning and implementation at an operational and global marketing level.

Wendy's qualifications include a DBA and MBA from Cranfield School of Management and an MSc in International Human Resources from Salford University where she researched the link between international culture and expatriate performance.

Current activities

Wendy's ongoing research interest is the impact of leadership development. She is currently building a database of impact data which will allow comparisons to be made between the impact of different methods of development.