Nottingham Business School celebrates business leadership through art
Nottingham Business School (NBS) is exhibiting a unique collection of ink portraits by accomplished illustrator, Laura Quick, which honour influential leaders in business and industry who have participated in the NBS Business Leaders Series.
By Helen Breese | Published on 14 November 2024
Categories: Press office; Nottingham Business School;
The 50 Portraits in Ink initiative recognises the invaluable contributions of leaders who have generously shared their knowledge and insights with NBS’ community of students, academics, and business partners through its Business Leaders Lectures series.
Along with a permanent exhibition in the iconic Newton building, home of NBS, the portraits will feature in a special book alongside selected quotations from the 50 distinguished leaders - reflecting the rich tapestry of human experiences in the business world.
These leaders collectively have more than 1,000 years of leadership experience, managed more than one million people and generated hundreds of billions of pounds in revenue across diverse industries including automotive, aerospace, banking, pharmaceuticals, technology, and more. They have also represented organisations such as the CBI, CMI, CIPD, IoD, and EFMD.
The 50 Portraits in Ink exhibition at NBS
The collection aims to provide students and visitors with real-life examples of success, challenges, and the lessons learned along the way.
Professor Baback Yazdani, Executive Dean of Nottingham Business School, said: “We are grateful to all the business leaders who have contributed to this project, as well as to Laura Quick for her exceptional artistic talent.
“NBS is a business school for business with a purpose of delivering research and education that combines academic excellence with a positive impact on people, business and society.
“We do this by having deep connections, collaborations and partnerships with private, public and voluntary sectors of the economy at all levels. As a result, we ask business leaders to share with us their long-term plans and needs and help us to shape our research and education.
“The collection will continue to grow as we invite more business leaders to Nottingham to share their thoughts with us and we hope that the original ink portraits on permanent display will serve as a source of inspiration and reflection for all who visit.”
Laura Quick, illustrator and writer with over 20 years of experience, said: “This project pulls together a wide and diverse range of people. It creates the sense of a community that can offer experience and wisdom in an environment filled with young people. As an illustrator and lecturer this is really interesting to me. It demonstrates reflections of successes failures and struggles, expressed in faces characters and stories. And to quote Debbie Hewitt, ‘Show me, don’t tell me.’”
The business leaders were invited to a special lunch hosted by NTU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Edward Peck, to celebrate the launch of the 50 Portraits in Ink exhibition at Nottingham Business School, where they also received a copy of the book and their own portrait.
Notes for Editors
Press enquiries please contact Helen Breese, Public Relations Manager, on telephone +44 (0)115 848 8751, or via email.
About Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Business School (NBS) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a leader in experiential learning and personalisation of business, management and economics education and research, combining academic excellence with positive impact on people, business and society. NBS has an unrivalled level of engagement with business, public and voluntary organisations. With more than 8,000 students, NBS is also one of UK’s largest business schools.
NBS is triple crown accredited by EQUIS, AACSB, and AMBA as well as EFMD BA for International Business, which are globally recognised hallmarks of excellence and quality for business education. NBS is also accredited by Small Business Charter, providing support and development for SMEs. The school is also a PRME Champion and held up as an exemplar and beacon by the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME).
About Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has been named UK ‘University of the Year’ five times in six years, (Times Higher Education Awards 2017, The Guardian University Awards 2019, The Times and Sunday Times 2018 and 2023, Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023) and is consistently one of the top performing modern universities in the UK.
It is the 3rd best modern university in the UK (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023). Students have voted NTU 1st in the UK for student employability (Uni Compare 2025)
NTU is the 5th largest UK institution by student numbers, with over 40,000 students and more than 4,400 staff located across six campuses. It has an international student population of almost 7,000 and an NTU community representing over 160 countries.
NTU owns two Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for outstanding achievements in research (2015, 2021). The first recognises NTU’s research on the safety and security of global citizens. The second was awarded for research in science, engineering, arts and humanities to investigate and restore cultural objects, buildings and heritage. The Research Excellence Framework (2021) classed 83% of NTU’s research activity as either world-leading or internationally excellent.
NTU was awarded GOLD in the national 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) assessment, as it was in 2019.
NTU is a top 10 for sport (British Universities and Colleges Sport league table 2023).
NTU is the most environmentally sustainable university in the UK and second in the world (UI Green Metric University World Rankings, 2023).