REGULAR readers of the Warrington Guardian’s business pages will have enjoyed Professor Lawrence Bellamy’s regular contributions over the past two years.

The associate dean at the University of Chester’s Padgate campus joined the university’s business school in 2012 and rather than writing the column this week, he is the subject of it. On Thursday he gave his inaugural lecture at the Padgate campus, which this year celebrates its 65th birthday.

I was among the invited audience of colleagues, members of the town’s business community, friends and family.

And while the theme, Operations, Strategy and Risk: A Process Journey, might have been out of my comfort zone, it was interesting to watch Prof Bellamy in his home environment.

As anyone who reads the column will know, this Yorkshireman by birth has a real knack of making the complicated understandable for the average person.

So while I probably won’t be volunteering to take an exam on the lecture next week, I enjoyed it and hopefully will take something from it into my day-to-day work.

What Lawrence has in spades is the ability to take a complex subject matter and make it relevant to the audience.

  • Gareth Dunning is deputy editor at the Warrington Guardian