About Paul Burns

Paul Burns is Emeritus Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Bedfordshire Business School, UK. He was Dean of the Business School for 10 years and was also Pro Vice Chancellor. Over a career spanning more than 40 years he has been an academic, an accountant and an entrepreneur – giving him unrivalled academic and practical insight into the entrepreneurial process. As well as launching and running his own business, he has helped develop hundreds of business plans and has worked with entrepreneurs, small firms and their advisors to help launch successful businesses.

For ten years he was Professor of Small Business Development at Cranfield School of Management, UK, where, in 1983, he launched the Graduate Enterprise Programme in England, which was offered at dozens of Universities. He started his academic career at Warwick University Business School, UK, where he set up their first Small Business Unit. For eight years he was Director of 3i European Enterprise Research Centre researching small firms and entrepreneurs across Europe. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Business School, USA and for three years was Visiting Professor at the Open University Business School, UK, where he developed the multi-media Small Business Programme which was screened on BBC2. He is Fellow and a former President of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE).

Paul qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co. in London, where he worked with many growing businesses. He launched and ran his own business, Design for Learning Ltd., advising and training on entrepreneurship and growing firms where he worked with organizations such as the accounting firms Grant Thornton and BDO Stoy Hayward, venture capitalists 3i, and banks such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds. He has advised and consulted at various levels of government in the UK and overseas. He has authored dozens of books and hundreds of journal articles and research reports. Margaret Thatcher wrote the forward to one of his early books, Entrepreneur: Eight British success stories of the eighties (MacMillan, 1988).