Rate My Professor Sarah Fidment

Professor Sarah Fidment serves as Professor of Leadership and Management and Head of Department for People and Performance at the Manchester Metropolitan Business School, part of the Faculty of Business and Law. The department delivers specialist programmes in human resource management, business psychology, and sport business and marketing management, including an AMBA-accredited MBA and Senior People Professional Apprenticeship. As a CIPD-approved centre, it emphasizes academic thinking, research, and industry experience. Fidment's expertise lies in leadership development, inclusive management and leadership excellence, organisational development, people development, creating inclusive cultures, organisational learning, and organisational design. She has designed, developed, and delivered over 50 leadership development interventions for national and international audiences, utilizing group and team-based approaches such as action learning, open space methodologies, and appreciative inquiry. She is a member of the Centre for Decent Work and Productivity, which focuses on labour markets, skills and employability, employee voice, regulation of work, decent work, wellbeing, health at work, labour market transitions, equalities in work, training, education, and business psychology.

Prior to academia, Fidment held senior executive positions in SMEs in the Sheffield City Region. She played a pivotal role in establishing the first higher Degree Management Apprenticeship in the UK in 2016 and has worked on leadership development programmes with clients including Nestlé, Morrisons, the Co-operative Group, Norgren, Sheffield City Council, South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield University, and the Department of International Development. Appointed Professor in 2021 for her outstanding contributions to inclusive leadership and management professional practice, she is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, holding this status for 16 years. Fidment serves as a board member of the International Journal for HRD: Practice, Policy and Research, acted as peer reviewer for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact in 2019, and chaired the 2022 University Forum for Human Resource Development International Conference. Her key publications include a chapter in the book Responsible Human Resource Management: Sustainable, Ethical and Inclusive (2025) and an article titled 'The University Forum for Human Resource Development' in Human Resource Development International (1999).