The team: MPW Making Places Work

Medi Parry-Williams

FOUNDER & DIRECTOR

Medi Parry-Williams is the founder of MPW Making Places Work. 

With her passion, vision and expertise, Medi revitalises retail destinations and together with her incredible team, she transforms them into thriving places of vibrant community – vitally helping local economies to grow. 

Medi established MPW Making Places Work to create impact, to bring places to life and to make meaningful differences to people’s everyday lives. 

With her, she brings over 15 years’ experience in the shopping centre and town centre industry and is known for her abundance of energy, problem solving techniques and professional skills, which she shares to help empower other people and enable places to grow.

With practical international business experience, non-executive director and executive director roles over many years, Medi understands exactly which successful strategies work on the ground to create thriving and sustainable retail destinations by simultaneously making profits work at board level. 

MPW Making Places Work, is a powerful, professional force to create positive change.

Dr Sara Parry

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Specialising in marketing, small business marketing and consumer behaviour. As a professional university level educator, Sara also brings extensive training and development expertise to the business. 

Dr Sara Parry is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Bangor Business School. She leads a number of Marketing modules on the BSc Marketing, MBA International Marketing and MA Business and Marketing programmes. Her research interests include consumer behaviour and small business marketing and her research work has appeared in a number of internationally recognised journals such as European Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Consumer Studies and Journal of Business Management. 

Experience

Sara is an outstanding educator and experienced marketing professional with an impressive CV to date which includes the following posts and responsibilities:

  • Postgraduate Director of Marketing Programmes at Bangor University

  • Associate Editor for Marketing Intelligence & Planning

  • Leads the ‘Understanding Consumers’ research group at Bangor Business School.

  • Lead of funded research projects by the Welsh Government (PI, £20k, 2021- 2022) and the Bangor Impact and Innovation Award (PI, £20k, 2022-2023)

  • External Examiner for Cardiff Business School’s MSc Strategic Marketing programme.

  • Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) accredited.

Dr Anna Edwards

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Specialising in urban economic development, data analytics, strategising and the night-time economy. 

Anna is an experienced economic researcher with almost two decades years of experience and holds a PhD in economic geography and urban analysis & development from the University of Melbourne. She has led and participated in a variety of public and private sector projects for various economic purposes and has a wealth of experience in data analysis (quantitative and qualitative) and designing research methodologies to elicit hard-to-reach information.

We’re delighted to have such a data expert on our MPW board, as one of Anna’s many skills and a key strength, is reporting information and evaluation evidence generated through programs of primary and secondary research to provide clear interpretation and understanding.  She is a certified PRINCE2 project management practitioner, a Tableau Desktop Specialist and is also Alteryx Designer Core certified.

Education

  • PhD Economic Geography and Urban Analysis & Development from the University of Melbourne

  • MSc Economic Development Research and Policy from the University of  Birmingham

  • BA Business Studies (First Class Honours) from the University of Hull

  • Specialist Certificate in Leadership (First Class) Melbourne Business School

  • Certificate in small group teaching

Alison Shipperbottom

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

With a strong focus on stakeholder management, underpinned by her deep appreciation for building effective partnerships, Alison understands the power of collaboration and being united by the same goal. 

 As a communications and marketing specialist, Alison has spent 18 years working in both private and public sector focusing on town centre regeneration, a decade of that was spent as a Shopping Centre Manager.

Her collaborative approach and proven stakeholder management techniques have been instrumental in the success of numerous private and public sector partnership projects.

 

Experience

  • Roles in Economic Development, Retail Investment and Town Centre Management working within various Local Authorities

  • Head of Communications for retail-led regeneration specialists overseeing the communications and marketing functions for a portfolio of shopping centres across the UK.

  • Shopping Centre Manager charged with driving high footfall and offering business support to a diverse range of national and independent businesses. 

 

2017: IOSH Event Safety Management, Sheffield Hallam University.

2005: BA Media Communications and Management, University of Lincoln.

 

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