Professor Chris Pyke

In 1983, after leaving school Chris joined Cheshire County Council in the County Planning Department working on developing computerised management information systems. During his time in the Planning Department he undertook his first degree on a part-time basis. In 1987 he then moved to the County Finance Office where he studied for the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), qualifying as an accountant in 1993. He worked in various departments gaining experiences in revenue budgeting, budgetary control, capital accounting, capital financing, systems based auditing, risk analysis, establishment audits and value for money studies.

In 1995 Chris left Cheshire County Council to join Liverpool John Moores University as a senior lecturer in accounting and finance, teaching management accounting, finance and business strategy at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Whilst at LJMU he undertook a number of roles including the CIPFA Programme Leader, he also taught on a range of commercial public and private sector financial management courses. In 1997 he became Head of Centre for Public Service Management with responsibility for developing the public sector teaching, training and research portfolio. He studied for an MPhil on the implementation of “Best Value” in local government and became the Subject Group Leader for Accounting and Financial Management in 2003.

In 2007 Chris moved to the University of Chester to be Head of Chester Business School, and took on the additional role of Associate Dean in 2008 for the Faculty of Business Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. He transformed the Chester Business School, doubling its size in three years, growing its academic portfolio and substantially increasing its international reach with partnerships, franchises and collaborations in South East Asia. In 2010 he became Bank of America Professor of Consumer Financial Services, working closely with the Bank on various projects. In 2010 Chris was also elected President of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy North West Regional Society.

In 2013 Chris was appointed Associate Dean & Head of Department - Accounting, Finance and Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University. As Associate Dean he was responsible for the student experience, employability and social responsibility. As Head of Accounting, Finance and Economics he led a large department teaching 2,500 students at foundation, undergraduate, postgraduate, professional and doctoral level. He diversified the portfolio to include behavioural economics, banking and finance programmes and developed a fully online masters’ programmes. The Behavioural Economics Consultancy Unit (BECU) was established in the department in 2014 and the Centre for Applied Behavioural Economics (CABE) in 2016. Chris was also responsible for producing the annual “North West Region’s Top 200 Companies League Table” for Business Week.

In 2017 Chris was appointed Executive Dean of Lancashire School of Business and Enterprise at the University of Central Lancashire, which was formed from merging UCLan’s Schools of Management and Business. The School has approximately 2000 students and over 120 staff. His research interests are in the broad areas of accounting and finance. He has a wide range of publications from costing and pricing in the public sector to measuring downside risk in the capital markets. He is currently collaborating with the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland, on a series of papers assessing capital market risk using accounting profitability ratios. He is also an examiner for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).