The REBOUND Team
Our team brings together a wide range of expertise ranging from enterprise and innovation, strategic management, information systems, and accounting and finance
Dr Seun Kolade is an Associate Professor/Reader in Entrepreneurship and International Development at De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester UK where he also holds the post of the Faculty Head of Research Students’ Training. His research activities cover the broad areas of transformative entrepreneuring, digital transformation, spiritual capital, social capital, and SME strategies in turbulent environments. In addition to being an entrepreneur and investor, Dr Kolade runs a series of Enterprise Boot Camps for aspiring and nascent entrepreneurs in Nigeria, supported by De Montfort University. He has also served as an advisor for several SMEs, and he is a consultant for British Council. Dr Kolade has authored more than 40 academic outputs, including articles in reputable international journals, book chapters, refereed conference papers, and reports. He is currently leading two funded projects investigating entrepreneurship among forcibly displaced peoples, and SMEs strategies in turbulent environments. He is a co-investigator in the UKRI-funded project examining digital innovation for a circular plastic economy.
Principal Investigator
Professor David Rae is Professor of Enterprise and Director of the Centre for Enterprise & Innovation at Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom.
He is an innovator and researcher in entrepreneurial learning, leadership, and management who has held senior academic roles at six universities. He won the European Entrepreneurship Education Award in 2020.
He has a long-term interest in entrepreneurial management and owner-manager development, and brings this experience to the REBOUND project.
His research interests include:
• Leadership for sustainable entrepreneurship
Intercultural, minorities and international entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial Learning and entrepreneurship education
• Open Data and Open Entrepreneurship
Email address: david.rae@dmu.ac.uk
Twitter: @CEntIntDMU
Director, Centre for Enterprise & Innovation
Demola Obembe is Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Head of Department for the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at De Montfort University, UK. He has over 16 years of academic teaching and research experience, having held appointments at four UK higher education institutions. Prior to this, he worked in the Nigerian Banking sector. His research interests are in the areas of, strategy process and practice, entrepreneurship and SMEs, knowledge and innovation management, and social capital.
He can be contacted at dobembe@dmu.ac.uk
Head of Department, Management & Entrepreneurship
Dr. Adebowale Owoseni is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at the School of Computer Science and Informatics, De Montfort University. Prior to joining academia, he worked as a software developer and solution architect in the financial service sector for 13 years. He leverages significant industry experience for teaching and research on computing for (small) businesses, digital transformation, ICT for development, and the societal impact of digital technologies.
Co-Investigator
Dr Natasha Katuta Mwila is an academic with a broad range and depth of experience in coordinating business management programs, supervising business research and teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in business management. She is a subject and curriculum developer with expertise in blended and multimodal learning approaches. She has held several external examiner and advisory positions relevant to her expertise. Dr Natasha Katuta Mwila is a case method researcher with a broad range of research interests related to entrepreneurship and women’s work. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Chartered Management and Business Educator.
Email: natasha.mwila@dmu.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashakmwila/
Co-Investigator
Dr Adekunle Ogunsade is an academic with a wealth of knowledge in business development as well as considerable experience of working with corporate stakeholders on various projects. As Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA), he leverages on industry and research experience to advance excellent teaching and innovative classroom practice. He is an innovator that successfully developed a fluid bootstrapping finance strategy framework and a dynamic micro seed funding platform where nascent entrepreneurs can bring business ideas into fruition. His research interests are around institutional entrepreneurship, small business innovation, entrepreneurship education and business start-ups.
Email: adekunle.ogunsade@dmu.ac.uk Twitter: @Isaackog
Co-Investigator
Dr Funmi Obembe is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at the School of Computer Science and Informatics at De Montfort University. She is also the Commercial Outreach Lead for the Centre for Computing & Social Responsibility Research Institute. Prior to going into full time academia, she worked in the technology industry/health informatics sector for over 18 years and is also a data development and analytics specialist. Funmi is passionate about bringing together in teaching and research both theoretical aspects of technology and their practical applications. Her main research areas are in technology enhanced learning, big data analytics/data science, knowledge management and machine learning/deep learning algorithms for knowledge representations.
Email address: funmi.obembe@dmu.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/funmi-obembe/
Co-Investigator
Dr Samuel Salia has held various academic roles both within the UK and abroad (for over 9 years) before joining De Montfort University in July 2019. He has also worked as a Management Consultant at the Management Development and Productivity Institute, under the Ghana Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations. Samuel has supervised PhDs in the area of finance. His research interest is multidisciplinary with specific focus on diaspora finance, entrepreneurial finance and financial market development. Other research areas include AI investment, entrepreneurship skills development and green finance.
Co-Investigator
Dr William Murithi is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship and a member of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at De Montfort University. He has over 5 years’ experience in teaching, scholarship and research in Higher education in the UK. Dr Murithi has an extensive industry experience working in management consulting, business development and project management. His research interests are in entrepreneurship, strategic behaviors, family businesses, national culture, social capital, institutional voids, digital transformation and agricultural supply and value chains in developing economies as well as technology enhanced learning. His research has been published in internationally reputable journals, books and presented in international conferences. He is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and a Certified Management and Business Educator (CMBE) in the UK. Dr Murithi serves as an advisor in the executive committee of the newly formed Africa Business Chamber (AfBC), UK and as a Trustee for Kevin Kararwa Leukaemia Trust (KKLT), UK.
Dr Murithi email is William.murithi@dmu.ac.uk and murithiwilliam@gmail.com . LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dr-william-murithi-ph-d-fhea-cmbe-8a169425
Twitter: @WMurithi
Co-Investigator
Dr. Victor Atiase is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance in the Department of Accounting at De Montfort University. Before this role, he held an academic role in Coventry University in the International Centre for Transformational Entrepreneurship (ICTE), Faculty of Business and Law as a Lecturer in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship teaching and supervising both undergraduate and postgraduate students (April 2018-December, 2019). Also, between June 2017 to September 2020, he held a Visiting Lecturer position at the University of Wolverhampton Business School, United Kingdom. Prior to these roles in the United Kingdom, he has held several teaching positions as a lecturer in both Perez University and EP. University Colleges all in Ghana (2008 to 2015).
Before taking a full-time academic position, he spent close to a decade of his professional life in a broad spectrum of financial institutions (Commercial Banking, Rural Banking, Savings and Loans and FNGOs) specialising in credit risk management and microfinance as well as seeing to the financing, growth and training of countless SMEs.
Dr Regina Frank is Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University (DMU), where she enjoys fostering critical thinking and entrepreneurial mindsets and skills of students of all levels (from UG to PG and Exec Ed), all the while encouraging activism in relation to global sustainability matters and UN SDGs.
Regina has a distinctively international educational and professional background, having lived and worked in Portugal, Brazil, Switzerland, France and the UK. Her multicultural work experience encompasses both academic and commercial worlds, in a variety of contexts
Co-Investigator
Dr. Ibrahim Rufai is a consummate academic with appreciable industry experience in the financial services sector. He is passionate about the potentials of applied research in facilitating visible improvements in every facet of the business life cycle. He graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Ph.D. in Management, after a successful stint in the banking sector. Ibrahim began his academic career at the University of Birmingham, Coventry, and Ulster Universities before joining Staffordshire University in November 2015 as Lecturer in Business and Management. He later joined De Montfort University in January 2019 as Senior Lecturer in Business and Management. Ibrahim is research active with a growing publication profile in international peer-reviewed journals. He has published in notable journals such as Journal of Business Ethics; International Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Performance Evaluation; as well as Accounting Education among others. His research interests include SMEs and the use of ICTs; Corporate Governance; Issues Pertaining to Grand Corruption in Business and Governance; Strategic Management and Business Communications.
Co-Investigator
Aderemi Ojebode is a lecturer in business and management at the department of management and entrepreneurship, De Montfort University, UK. He has over 20 years industry experience and over 6 years of teaching and research experience. He worked in Nigerian Public Sector and with few private organizations in the UK. He started his academic career at Wolverhampton University and Birmingham city University before joining De Montfort University in 2018. His research interests fall within the realm of corporate governance, board diversity and performance, knowledge creation within the episodic team, small teams and international management.
He can be contacted at aderemi.ojebode@dmu.ac.uk
Co-Investigator