Our PhD Fellows
Khamael Al Safi
Khamael Al Safi is a PhD student at Bayes Business School. Her research interests include the development of new venture ideas, the emotional experiences of finance-seeking entrepreneurs and the entrepreneur’s first-person subjective perspective. Khamael completed her MSc degree in Organisations and Governance at the London School of Economics and her undergraduate studies in Human Resources and Psychology at Middlesex University Dubai. Before starting her PhD, she taught courses in Organisational Behaviour to undergraduate students at both Middlesex University Dubai and the University of Sharjah. She previously worked at McKinsey and Company, where she worked in developing training programs for board directors in the Middle East. She has worked in public sector advisory on building open and inclusive ecosystems at the Dubai node of the Open Data Institute.
Khamael Al Safi – Bayes Profile
Waad Alshaikh
Waad Alshaikh is a PhD student at Bayes Business School, working under the supervision of Prof. Amanda Goodall and Dr. Lauren McCarthy. Her research interests include leadership development programs, feminism, and leadership challenges in non-Western
contexts, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Her research aims to uncover participants’ perceptions of the outcomes of leadership development programs.
Waad holds an MSc in International Human Resource Management from the University of Reading and BSc degree from the University of Business and Technology in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Before starting her PhD, Waad worked in London at a UK talent solutions company, where she focused on the Saudi market, managing various projects centred around sustainability, inclusive recruitment practices and career advisory programs. She also co-founded a Non-profit initiative for the youth connecting Saudi leaders with the younger generation, providing guidance and empowerment to help them realize their potential.
Khodr Badih
Khodr is a second year PhD student working with Daniel Beunza, Santi Furnari and Aulia Syakhroza. His broad research interests concern Crisis Studies, in particular, looking at how a severe political and financial crisis in Lebanon induced a change in the energy sector in the country. Up to 2019, most Lebanese households were powered by diesel generators. After the 2019 crisis in the country which resulted in severe shortages in fuel, households were (forced) to switch to solar energy and thus the power solutions providers as well were forced to open large scale renewable energy departments. Khodr is studying this transition to renewables induced by the crisis.
Christopher Benoit
Christopher is a PhD Fellow at Bayes Business School. He holds an MSc in Management and Organisational Innovation from Queen Mary, University of London. His PhD and interest focus on why and how public sector organisations decide to adopt corporate social responsibility practices and discourse within their business practices and analyses the main affects produced by the adoption of being more socially responsible in society. Christopher’s PhD interest also looks at how the London Metropolitan police service uses the concept of corporate social responsibility as a strategy to build/repair confidence, trust, legitimacy, and reputation with society and in particular young adults. Christopher has over 10 years’ work experience in the public/private sector and is currently working with Barking and Dagenham Metropolitan police confidence and youth engagement teams to device strategies to better engage with young adults from different ethnic backgrounds.
Christopher Benoit – LinkedIn Profile
Debjyoti Chakravorty
Debjyoti Chakravorty is a 4th year PhD Fellow in Management at Bayes Business School. Deb’s research lies at the intersection of Organizational Behaviour and Social Purpose with particular focus on topics such as marginalized and indigenous communities, poverty, identity, discursive and narrative practices, social/resistance movements, and emancipation. Using 120+ interviews, ethnographic observations, and archival records collected over two phases of fieldwork for 1 year, Deb’s work explores how the poor and marginalized tea plantation workers of Darjeeling, India – who are being increasingly exploited and deprived of their rights by the tea companies and the government for several decades – craft narratives and mobilize them to collectively construct self-worth and dignity at work to achieve a positive social change, seeking emancipation from the control of their employers. His research is being supervised by Dr. Joelle Evans and Dr. Itziar Castello. Before starting his PhD, Deb obtained an MSc (Research) in Management – Strategy from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam (2020), an MSc in Banking and Finance (Distinction) from Queen Mary, University of London (2014), and a B.Com Hons. from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India (2012). Additionally, Deb has 2.5 years of industry experience in Strategy, Operations, and M&A Consulting with Deloitte and PwC India respectively.
Mikaela Murekian
Mikaela Murekian is a PhD researcher in Management at Bayes Business School, City, University of London. With over a decade of
experience in the investment industry, her research focuses on ESG and private equity. Mikaela has held senior roles in communications and sustainability, including at a pan-European private equity firm and a venture capital firm specialising in early-stage tech startups. She holds an MSc in Business and Economics and an MA in Political Science from Stockholm University, as well as certifications in CFA ESG Investing and GRI Standards.
Mikaela’s Bayes Profile
Chiamaka Ibeh
Chiamaka Ibeh is a PhD student at Bayes Business School, working with Bobby Banerjee and Lauren McCarthy. Her research interests include climate change, corporate social responsibility, and indigenous community rights in a net-zero transition. Chiamaka completed her MBA at the Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University and her undergraduate degree in Law at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Before starting her PhD, Chiamaka worked with the American Business Council in Nigeria to create a Sustainability Committee for the Council and pioneered the publication of its first ever Sustainability Law Review. She has worked on improving Nigerian female smallholder farmers’ access to finance, storage facilities, and fair markets; also on implementing programmes that drive the sustainable production of agricultural commodities. She also served as a Co-Coordinator of the Lagos State Judiciary Backlog Elimination Programme (BEP), which saw the issuance of novel civil procedural rules to expedite court proceedings in the High Court of Lagos State, Nigeria. She is a Life Member of the Beta Gamma Sigma International Business Honor Society.
Chiamaka Ibeh LinkedIn Profile
Steven Mark Leroy
Steven “Steve” Mark Leroy is an Executive PhD student in Management at Bayes Business School, at City, University of London, UK. Working with Professors Jean-Pascal Gond and Santi Furnari, he examines whether and how ESG is implemented across the less scrutinised “private” institutional investment chain, from institutional investors over private debt and private equity firms down to portfolio companies.
Steve is also a business executive and consultant with a diverse experience in public affairs, communications, crisis & issues management, environmental, social & governance factors (ESG), business project management, legal, governance & compliance, acquired within multinational companies in food & drink, media and telecommunications. Prior to that, he worked as a lawyer in Brussels and as the Governor’s chief of staff in Antwerp.
Steve holds a Master’s degree in Law from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; a Master’s degree in Commercial & Consular Sciences from Hautes Etudes Commerciales St. Louis (Groupe ICHEC), in Brussels, Belgium; a full-time Master of Business Administration from INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France; and the specialised Master’s degree in EU Competition Law & Economics from the Brussels School of Competition, Belgium.
Steven Mark Leroy – LinkedIn Profile
Yousaf Nishat-Botero
Yousaf Nishat-Botero is a PhD Candidate at Bayes Business School, City, University of London, and he holds an MA in Philosophy and Contemporary Critical Theory from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University. His research is on democratic economic planning, urban-agrarian political economy, and social metabolism in the context of the climate crisis. You can read some of Yousaf's work on democratic planning and (urban-rural) political ecology in Organizationand Competition and Change.
Yousaf Nishat-Botero - Bayes Profile
Emily Perkin
Emily is a PhD student at Bayes Business School, working with Dr Justin Davis Smith and Professor Jean-Pascal Gond. Her research focuses on corporate employee volunteering, exploring questions around the interplay between the non-profit and for-profit sectors. Emily started her career in the humanitarian aid sector, before moving into strategy consulting. She then spent ten years in Singapore, where she founded and ran a strategy consultancy working with charities and philanthropic foundations across several countries in Southeast Asia. Most recently, she worked for a major technology company as Asia-Pacific head of corporate philanthropy. She holds an MSc in Voluntary Sector Management from Bayes Business School, a Master's in Public Policy from Osaka University and an MA in Japanese Studies from Cambridge University.