Professor Steve Wood

In January 2025, Professor Steve Wood joined University of Exeter in the role of Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of University of Exeter Business School. In Summer 2024, Steve concluded a five-year term as Dean of Surrey Business School, University of Surrey where he led significant improvement in teaching, research, and staff engagement metrics as well as driving performance in international rankings. He has wide-ranging experience of academic leadership, including AACSB and AMBA accreditation, Research Excellence Framework (REF) submission and developing business school strategy. He was previously Surrey Business School’s Director of Research, School REF lead, as well as Head of the Department of Marketing. Earlier in his academic career, Steve was Reader in Strategy, University of Southampton. Prior to 2005, Steve spent three years at Tesco plc in its marketing and property departments advising on UK and international store development strategy and has experience as a Retail Analyst for Verdict Research, a London-based retail consultancy.

Steve's research particularly focuses on retailing, including internationalization, online retailing (and product returns), store location planning, competition policy, supply networks and pricing. He has published in leading journals including Journal of Economic Geography, Environment and Planning A, Regional Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Marketing Management and European Journal of Marketing amongst others. He is European and Africa Regional Editor for the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management (IF: 5.5), a member of the editorial board of Journal of Business Research (IF: 10.5) and has been cited by the press in publications such as The Economist, China Daily and Retail Week. He has been a member of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Peer Review College since 2015. In 2019, Steve was Visiting Professor at Global Production Networks Centre at the National University of Singapore. Steve has received research funding from the John Lewis Partnership, SONY, Advanced Institute of Management (AIM), British Academy of Management (BAM), NEMODE/EPSRC and the Nuffield Foundation. An experienced examiner, he was most recently external examiner for undergraduate management programmes at University of Bristol (2017-2022), having fulfilled the same role at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (2011-2014) amongst others.

Since 2018, Steve has been a Trustee of Bohunt Education Trust, which comprises nine secondary schools and over 11,000 students, where he Chairs the overall Trust’s Education Committee. Earlier, between 2012-15, he sat on the governing body of Ash Manor School where he was Chair of its Curriculum Committee. He is a leader at his local village Cub Scout pack in Hampshire and Assistant Manager of the mighty Under 15s Liphook Pumas football team.