A former Mitchells & Butlers' Executive Director has swapped the boardroom for the classroom as he takes on a new role at Birmingham City University's Business School.

Professor Chris Edger (PhD 2003-08), the former Group HR, Service and Productivity director for the casual dining restaurant company (with 2,000 outlets and 22 brands including Browns, All Bar One, Vintage Inns, Harvester, Toby, Miller and Carter, Ember Inns and Sizzling Pub Company) has joined Birmingham City Business School (BCBS) as Professor of Multi-Unit Leadership and will be attached to the University's Centre for Leadership and Management. He is the first of two 'Professors of Practice' who will help develop and shape BCBS as a leading practice-based business school.

Professor Edger has been working with BCBS since 2008 as a Visiting Professor, during which time he helped pioneer a Postgraduate Diploma in Multi-Unit Leadership for some of M&B's 136 multi-unit leaders and a Certificate in Management Studies for some of the company's 2,000 Unit Managers.

Chris previously held Executive Director positions in retail operations, sales, acquisitions and purchasing with Bass Leisure Entertainments (Hollywood Bowl), Bass Brewers (Carling, Grolsch and Worthingtons) and Coors. He has a PhD (Warwick Business School), MSc (LSE), a DMS and MBA (NBS) and is a fellow of the CIPD. Chris has lectured on the Warwick MBA and Masters in Management since 2006.

On joining BCBS Chris said: "It is a great honour to be joining BCBS as the first Professor of Multi-Unit Leadership in the UK. There is enormous scope to develop and market courses that improve managerial capability (at unit, area and regional level) across the retail, hospitality and service sectors in the UK. Also there is also immense research potential as the psychology, sociology and economics of Multi-Unit leadership is under-researched and not well understood. "Combining both my corporate experience of Multi-Unit Leadership and my academic background, I will relish
teaching and researching this area of management practice."