Passionate about championing the North East and inspiring students’ curiosity, Charlie brings a wealth of experience in entrepreneurship, strategy, and digital innovation.  

Charlie will be the 21st Dean’s Visiting Professor of Innovation and Enterprise at the School. The appointment is made on an annual basis to a leading entrepreneur or influential figure who can inspire and motivate future entrepreneurs and business leaders.

He is Founder of Futureheads Recruitment, a tech-focused recruitment firm, and Cheviot Insured, which recently merged with city insurance leader Lycetts.

Earlier in his career, Charlie founded and led marcom group Loewy, growing the business to £50m in revenue and expanding the team from two to 400 employees.

Charlie was also founder/chair of North East England tech network Dynamo from 2013 to 2023. He has been responsible for initiating £100m of projects, including Newcastle University’s National Innovation Centre for Data and a new science-specialist senior school, North East Futures UTC.

Among other career highlights, Charlie was runner-up in the 2019 election for Mayor of Newcastle.

Create challenge

Charlie describes himself as a people person and disruptor. He is looking forward to being a role model for students and is committed to sharing his excitement for entrepreneurship, embracing new ideas and connecting with people.

Professor Stewart Robinson, Dean of Newcastle University Business School, said: "I am delighted to welcome Charlie Hoult as our 21st Dean’s Visiting Professor of Innovation and Enterprise.

"Through our Innovation Research Endowment, we have a long history of engaging with innovation and enterprise in the North East to the benefit of our community of students, staff, alumni and business leaders. We are excited to be working with Charlie over the coming year to further this engagement."

Q&A

To mark the 21st appointment and the start of Charlie’s tenure at the School, we sat down with him for a Q&A to find out more about his experience and what he hopes to bring to the role.

Can you share a moment when a bold idea you championed led to unexpected success?

A personal achievement, that I’m proud of, was being involved in launching the Northern Institute for Technology (NIT). I was Chair of Dynamo when George Osborne was visiting Newcastle with the aim of investing in the region. I had already created something that was ‘oven-ready’ for funding when NE Local Enterprise Partnership was seeking industry-led initiatives to include in the Devolution Settlement. Following several twists and challenges, this successfully became the National Innovation Centre for Data.

You’ve played a key role in Dynamo North East and the National Innovation Centre for Data. What’s your vision for the North East’s innovation ecosystem?

When we launched Dynamo, we asked BBC Tech Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones to answer the question, in a keynote: How do you make Newcastle the next Silicon Valley? His reply was provocative: ‘Don’t even try!’

The thesis is that you need to find what is unique to a city region to differentiate yourself from others. Newcastle University’s School of Medicine, for instance, is a great case study in differentiation because it has backed several niche areas where it has focused to be a global leader, such as DNA and ageing. This shows a couple of key branches on which they can build momentum and world-beating excellence.

In tech, the North East hasn’t created a cluster of e-commerce champions, like the North West. Similarly, rather than jump on the ‘fintech bandwagon’ as a generalist, we could build on the cluster of transaction processing leaders in our region: HMRC, DWP, NHS and Sage.

Or, we could build a cluster of architecture and built environment – our region has been a key leader in the protocol of Building Information Modelling, which is mandated in the UK as a platform for all public procurement in construction – and could be rolled out as a global standard. As we are a small region, we need to collaborate – to think strategically how we can differentiate then work together to champion regional opportunities.

What emerging trends in tech or enterprise excite you the most right now?

Entrepreneurship is about joining the dots, trying to make something new and different that can be monetised. You must consider geopolitics, society, national politics and changes in society and lifestyle.

Innovation is about joining those dots in a different way, especially in tech. AI, for example, has massive potential. I don’t foresee AI taking jobs, I see a whole raft of new businesses being created that we’ve never thought about.

What advice would you give to students at the School?

Being curious is important. If you don’t want to be left behind, you really must force yourself to be the future. How do you predict the future? You live in it, and you see it – you need to explore.

Charlie will start his tenure with the annual Innovation and Enterprise Lecture in October.

Charlie has also joined Court at Newcastle University. Court is one of the statutory bodies of the University that provides a channel of communication between the University and the community.