Donald Ross
Location: Manchester
Qualifications: BA Land Economy, MPhil Development Studies
I joined SQW in 2014 after studying at the University of Cambridge and then teaching English in China. I started as a Research Consultant in our Manchester office and have since been promoted to Managing Consultant. Having initially worked on projects covering the breadth of SQW’s expertise, I’ve now chosen to focus primarily on the spatial development and innovation policy areas.
I've really enjoyed being involved with the variety of projects that working at SQW brings. Projects can last anything from a couple of months to several years, can involve working in different parts of the UK (and internationally), and cover different places, sectors and types of public-sector intervention. For example, on one day I might be doing case study research on how a UK wide innovation support programme has helped an aerospace business to grow, whilst on another I could be investigating reasons behind the changing socio-economic performance of a specific Local Authority area. No two days are the same!
As I've developed at SQW I've taken on responsibility for managing projects. Variety in terms of service type – evaluation, appraisal, business case development etc. – and geography is also a key theme here. It's been interesting to work more closely with clients, and rewarding to see the hard work of colleagues come together into the final study output.
Alongside project work, I'm also responsible for keeping the SQW website up-to-date with the latest news about project wins, and the results of completed projects. This is a good way of finding out what's happening across the company as there are lots of interesting SQW projects I don't have time to be directly involved with.
