Matthew Gitsham

Why organisations work with Matthew Gitsham

• Two decades of research focused on what CEOs of named multinationals actually do on sustainability, not what they say in annual reports.
• Direct experience advising the UN Global Compact, Business in the Community and corporates including Unilever, IBM, HSBC, GSK, De Beers, Cemex and Pearson on sustainable development strategy.
• Thinkers50 Radar recognition and the Aspen Institute Rising Star award give boards external validation when commissioning content on a contested topic.
• His Rio+20 report “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World” shaped how the UN framed corporate leadership on sustainable development, evidence that his frameworks travel beyond the classroom.
• Research on corporate modern slavery leadership, conducted with the Ethical Trading Initiative, gives him operating substance on supply chain ESG that most academic voices lack.

Biography highlights

• Professor of Business and Sustainability, Hult Ashridge Executive Education.
• Director of the Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability.
• Thinkers50 Radar, Class of 2021. Cited as “global expert on CEOs and sustainability.”
• Aspen Institute and Academy of Business in Society European Faculty Pioneer Award, Rising Star category.
• Hult International Business School Researcher of the Year, 2016 to 2017.
• Lead author of “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World,” referenced at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

Biography

Most ESG conversations stop at the disclosure framework. The harder question, which Gitsham has spent twenty years researching, is what CEOs of Unilever, IBM, HSBC, GSK and similar companies actually do with sustainability once it leaves the sustainability report. His work tracks the decisions boards take on capital allocation, supplier governance and public policy advocacy when sustainability stops being narrative and starts being operating substance.

That research base is what earned him Thinkers50 Radar recognition in 2021, with Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove naming him a “global expert on CEOs and sustainability.” His Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute and the Academy of Business in Society European Faculty Pioneer Awards reflects the same point. He is not a commentator on sustainability. He is one of the few academics with sustained, named access to CEOs of large multinationals on the subject.

At Hult Ashridge, he directs the Centre for Business and Sustainability and teaches across the MBA and executive education programmes. His report “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World” was used to inform debate at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Current research partnerships include Business Fights Poverty on corporate SDG embedding and the Ethical Trading Initiative on corporate leadership on modern slavery, giving him an operating view of supply chain ESG that bridges academia and practice.

His work appears in The Economist, Financial Times and Harvard Business Review. His corporate clients span Tesco, Bayer, Rolls Royce, Swarovski, Marks & Spencer and Pearson, alongside the UK Senior Civil Service. The throughline across all of it is the same question: how do leaders of large organisations make defensible sustainability decisions when the stakes are now financial, political and reputational at once.

Key speaking topics

• Corporate sustainability and ESG strategy
• CEO leadership on sustainable development
• The UN Sustainable Development Goals and corporate practice
• Modern slavery and supply chain governance
• Business and public policy advocacy
• Climate action in commercial strategy
• Executive development for sustainability

Ideal for

• Boards and executive committees translating sustainability commitments into capital allocation and operating decisions
• Chief Sustainability Officers, CFOs and General Counsels handling ESG scrutiny and regulatory exposure
• Senior teams in companies with exposed supply chains are addressing modern slavery and human rights
• Corporate affairs and public policy leaders shaping CEO advocacy on climate, SDGs and sustainable development

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of what CEOs of large multinationals do differently when sustainability moves from narrative to operating substance.
• Named research evidence on corporate SDG embedding, modern slavery leadership and CEO public policy advocacy.
• A defensible framing for board conversations on ESG that withstands investor, regulatory and political scrutiny.
• Practical reference points from Unilever, IBM, HSBC and other named corporates, not generic sustainability case studies.