Oxford Road Corridor Executive

Claire Robinson is a solicitor and has been Commercial Director at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) since 2009. She leads the negotiations for the Trust on its strategic partnerships and significant projects, alongside providing an in-house legal function.  She manages the interface between the Trust and key local and national stakeholders on a range of commercial activities and led the discussions on the creation of the Citylabs campus. She sits on the Boards of the Citylabs portfolio and also represents MFT on the Board of Manchester Science Partnerships.

Angela is the Director of Inclusive Economy at Manchester City Council and provides leadership and coordination for the work that Manchester City Council does to support business and connect local residents to the employment opportunities created by the City’s growth. She is also responsible for MAES – Manchester’s Adult Education Service. Ensuring that local residents can contribute to and benefit from the growth of the City is a key priority for the City and our partners and critical if Manchester is to achieve its Our Manchester objectives of becoming a “highly skilled city” and a “fair and equitable city”. Previous to her current role, Angela was Head of Regeneration and held a number of regeneration positions at both area and citywide levels and prior to working with the City Council, Angela worked in a number of community regeneration, tenant participation and community economic development roles. Angela is a trustee on Young Manchester, a Director of One Education and a governor on the governing body of a local primary school which in their different ways improve the lives and education of young people.

Alex is a chartered accountant and provides leadership for Manchester Metropolitan University’s business engagement and partnerships, working with external organisations and employers across private and public sectors to deliver impactful activities that support the University’s education and research priorities. He has previously held senior roles at Deloitte, Manchester City FC and Manchester International Festival, driving strategic collaboration and partnerships in the city-region.

Liz Price is Professor of Environmental Education and serves as Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor Sustainability at Manchester Metropolitan University, responsible for driving sustainability in every aspect of university strategy and developing a sustainable mindset and skills for students and within communities, including accelerating education for the Sustainable Development Goals, Carbon Literacy and Net Zero skills.

She is Chair of the Community for Environmental Disciplines in Higher Education, Council Member of the Institution of Environmental Sciences, a member of the QAA and Advance HE Advisory Group that reviewed the Education for Sustainable Development Guidance for the UK, HEI Partner in the Department for Education National Education Nature Park consortium and is Co-Lead of the UK Consortium on Sustainability Research.

Dr Katherine Boylan is Director of Innovation at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), a position she has held since April 2020. This role involves overseeing innovation activities within MFT, part of the wider Research and Innovation function.

The innovation function supports intellectual property and commercialisation management; adoption of novel technologies within the Trust; strategic partnerships (with commercial organisations and other leading clinical/academic centres); a portfolio of strategic programmes (including the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Emergency and Acute Care, and the MFT Clinical Data Science Unit) and the interaction with the co-located companies across the Citylabs Innovation District.

Katherine has been a member of the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Medical Technologies Advisory Committee since September 2021.

Prior to this position, Katherine worked in the University of Manchester for a number of years, most recently as Operations Director for the Medical Research Council funded Molecular Pathology Node, and the Trust-funded Diagnostics and Technology Accelerator.

Alex is a Director of Innovation at Unit M, the University of Manchester’s innovation capability. Having gained a PhD in economics from the University of Leeds, Alex began his professional career at the University of Manchester, working in the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation & Competition (CRIC), leading a government research project into what was at that time the new field of e-commerce. He then spent over a decade working in economic consultancy working on projects for public, private and third sector clients across the UK and overseas on economic development and regeneration, with a particular focus on innovation and technology, prior to becoming Deputy Director of Research at New Economy, the public body charged with developing research and policy for Greater Manchester to support its development, which ultimately evolved into the Combined Authority. Following a brief spell back in economic consultancy as Principal Economist at Mott MacDonald, Alex headed up strategy and then policy at Manchester Airports Group (MAG), where he helped establish MAG’s new digital unit and led the company’s policy engagement with government policymakers before returning to the University in 2025.