Meet the Laterpreneurs Team

Hazel Squire

Hazel is the Interim Director for Business 4.0 and Subject Head for Enterprise at the University of Salford Business School.

Hazel originally had her own business before returning to education as a mature student and since graduating has over 30 years of experience working in Business Education, particularly, around enterprise and entrepreneurship. She has worked with both large and small businesses to provide bespoke training and qualifications.

In addition, she led on an EU Erasmus project` Silver Workers` which worked across five European countries (Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and the UK) to develop an online set of resources and a series of workshops to assist people over the age of 50 in the entrepreneurship process.

From this project she was able to undertake research and published a chapter on Silver Entrepreneurs in a new book entitled Entrepreneurship Education: A Lifelong Learning Approach published by Springer.

Hazel is actively researching the barriers faced by older people who wish to set up their own business venture.

Marzena Reszka

Marzena is passionate and enthusiastic lecturer in entrepreneurship management with over 18 years of experience working across different industries and disciplines, including running her own business.

Marzena has worked on several projects supporting small and medium companies in strategy, operations and supply chain management. She also was involved in several European projects and worked on developing an innovative and harmonised curriculum in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management under the Erasmus+ funded ‘’The Perfect’’ project, and policy design for innovation and strategy in the EU under the Horizon 2020 project in collaboration with European organisations.

Marzena has experience in delivering communication programmes on innovation in developing cities for national and EU28 markets.

Dr Favour Orji

Favour has 13 years’ experience of working with both SMEs and corporate businesses (e.g., Shell & Agip) in UK and West African in the areas of Stakeholder’s Collaboration, Business Growth, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation.

Favour has successfully led various collaborative business growth projects and multi-disciplinary research including Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter, Development of Capacity and Capability Toolkit (in partnership with SafeWater Project) and Work in Small Enterprise. She is keen to understand how businesses perceives and interprets value they create for their customers and immediate environments and how these could be quantified as measurable impacts and social return on investment while sustaining their competitive advantage.

Favour has published peer-reviewed research papers on business growth, stakeholders’ collaboration, and social economic value in conferences (e.g., BAM, ISBE) and evidence-based policy reports (e.g., ERDF).

Emily Whitehead

Emily has over 25 years’ experience in sales, marketing, training & communications, starting her career in the corporate world, followed by the last 17 years as a business consultant, coach, mentor, trainer and consultant. 

Emily has worked with a wide range of organisations & businesses, big and very small, delivering business support as part of government and European funded projects as well as working with private clients & at universities. Emily’s focus tends to be around marketing strategy, brand identity, communications, sustainable business and helping business build & grow in an integrated way.

Emily is also the founder of Simply Great Britain, a membership community for micro business owners which aims to provide high quality business support to the 96% of private UK business that micro is size but not in impact.

Mirage Islam

Mirage is Lecturer in Digital Marketing at SBS, and a Strategy Consultant helping business leaders and their organisations gain competitive advantage. Over two decades Mirage has worked with leading global brands to ensure their marketing and people deliver. 

Mirage started his marketing career in Financial Services and then FMCG, before joining one of the UK’s largest mobile Internet portals in 2000 – developing online communities and in-game sponsorship opportunities for iconic brands. He then spent 7 years with Sky, launching and leading its first Digital Partnership Programme, before becoming Future Media Lead with Executive sponsorship.

He has since worked with Commercial, Marketing and HR leaders in the UK and overseas including organisations such as Channel 4, TalkTalk, EY, Coca-Cola, Jardine Matheson, Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis Worldwide, to ensure their marketing teams understand the latest trends and innovations in Digital Marketing and shifts in consumer behaviour.

Formerly Chair of the Learning and Innovation at the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), he launched a UK Digital Knowledge Programme in partnership with Microsoft and BSkyB, to address industry skills gap, that is now in its fifteenth year.

Mirage is able to translate the changes in Digital communications, consumer behaviour and the impact on organisations to ensure organisational effectiveness. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts after being invited to join for his contribution to the Marketing and Communications industry and a judge on a number of digital awards bodies. In his spare time Mirage mentors young people and works with charities to help develop their digital capabilities. •LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirageislam/

Jane Pallister

Jane has been running her consultancy advising businesses for over 22 years, having started her business after a long career in radio marketing and advertising.  She’s worked with eBay, numerous business support agencies and universities, and is also an ISO consultant, preparing businesses for accreditation. 

Jane developed the Growth Action Plan for Help to Grow Management, a management development programme being delivered to thirty thousand senior managers across the UK – an initiative created by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak.  On a personal note, Jane is married with one son and two grandsons, and enjoys humour and good food.  And Jane is progressively growing grey and loving it!