Dr Joanna Berry is Associate Professor at Durham University Business School, Director of Durham Energy Institute and Director and Trustee at Acumen Community Buildings. Her Oxford Law degree took her to South Africa and brought her back to London where she spent a number of years in international business development roles, including time spent with McLaren and Mobil One Motorsport, and the World Economic Forum.

Her instinct for autonomy led to a career in entrepreneurship, most recently in academia where she completed her business-based MBA and PhD studies. Joanna now spends significant time bridging the gap between industry and intellect, building partnerships with private, public and third sector organisations for the benefit of students, colleagues and research institutes at Durham University and across her home region, the NorthEast of England.

Joanna defended black South Africans in 1985 apartheid Krugersdorp, and worked in the then male-dominated worlds of Formula One and the World Economic Forum (as Manager for Europe and East Asia) in the 1990s. She has supported women in sport in BBC Radio Five Live’s ‘Women on Top’, worked with offenders on the NE Offenders Skills and Offenders Board, and with young people through the Princes Trust Leadership Group; raised up fellow women in business as award winning mentor, speaker and Power List member of the Northern Power Women collective, and is governor and EDI lead in Schools in the UK and Netherlands.