Meet the Team

Ian is the Head of Institute of Place Management and joint founder of Civic Voice, as well as the founder of Love Wavertree CIC. He was elected as a Senior Fellow for recognition of his leadership, vision, and commitment to the civic cause, giving a voice and support to thousands of place makers around the UK. Ian is a judge for the International Diana Award and the Visa Let's Celebrate Towns award. He also sits on the prestigious Historic Places Panel for Historic England.

Rachel provides direct support to IPM members, as well as events planning and external liaison with the Institute. She is also part of the postgraduate programmes management team, working closely with lecturers and prospective students of the master’s degree. 

Nikos Ntounis is Senior Research Associate at the IPM. He joined IPM in 2014 and has worked and contributed in numerous IPM projects such as High Street UK 2020 and Bringing Big Data to Small Users. He is responsible for research and project delivery, and the development of products and services related to ongoing IPM projects. He has contributed to several IPM reports including 'Markets Matter', 'Multifunctional Centres', and most recently 'High Street 2030: Achieving Change' report.

Dr Chloe Steadman is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Researcher at the Institute of Place Management. She has a PhD in consumer research from the University of Manchester. Her research interests are in consumer culture, place experience, atmospheres, and qualitative methods. Chloe teaches about consumer behaviour, research methods, and leads the IPM's Postgraduate courses in Place Management and Leadership. Her first book called Consuming Atmospheres was published by Routledge in 2024 and she is the Academic Editor of the Routledge Series in Place Marketing and Management. 

She has been involved in IPM projects such as Vital and Viable Neighbourhoods (Manchester City Council and Stockport MBC), High Street 2030 (MHCLG), and the High Streets Task Force (MHCLG) and tracks the impacts of IPM research.

Tamara has joined IPM as Third Century Fellow in Place - based partnerships. Her research explores Cultural Heritage, cultural values(s) and policy. She also has research expertise in co- production and cross disciplinary methods, and in the exploration of place- based identities and practices of memory. She currently leads the ‘Cultural Heritage, People and Place’ project, funded by the AHRC-DCMS ‘Research culture and heritage capital with an interdisciplinary team’ call; and is Co-Investigator on the AHRC-DFG (UK - Germany) funded ‘RomMig’ project.

Afroditi is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Place Management since 2022. Alongside her role at IPM, she is pursuing a PhD focused on innovation within stakeholder networks as a pathway to regional development. As a key member of the research team, Afroditi has been involved in numerous IPM projects, including the annual research on place-based partnerships. During her work with the government-funded High Streets Task Force, she played a vital role in developing the Resource Library, delivering webinars, and supporting placemaking workshops to empower local communities.

Michael is a Research Associate at the Institute of Place Management. He completed his PhD in History at the University of Essex where he focused on how different communities in Colchester used the town’s Civil War history to understand the contemporary world that they lived in, and how local stakeholders in the town used the past to reinvent Colchester throughout the last three centuries.

Christian is an economist and data scientist with a passion for (and over 13 years' experience in) public policy, particularly local government finance and devolution, industrial strategy and urban economic development, specialising in using data analytics and visualisation tools to improve the public understanding of economics and economic data and to support policy-making and evaluation. He has worked in local government, think tanks, business and academia and in September 2022 found his own consultancy, Economic Analytics.

Ian is interim CEO of the Institute of Place Management and joint founder of Civic Voice, as well as the founder of Love Wavertree CIC. He was elected as a Senior Fellow for recognition of his leadership, vision, and commitment to the civic cause, giving a voice and support to thousands of place makers around the UK. Ian is a judge for the International Diana Award and the Visa Let's Celebrate Towns award. He also sits on the prestigious Historic Places Panel for Historic England.

Gaz is IT Manager for the Institute of Place Management. He joined IPM in 2019 and will develop IPM's digital systems. With a background in web development and digital marketing, Gaz previously worked for Manchester Metropolitan’s marketing team, leading on the promotion of research and knowledge exchange output for the Faculty of Business and Law. Gary also has an MA in Sport History and Culture from De Montfort University.