Professor John A Murphy, Alfred McAlpine Professor of Customer Management, Manchester Business School, Head of Development, Faculty of Humanities, combines the roles of academic and international consultant specialising in service quality management and customer retention. he has held a series of senior management positions both in Ireland and the UK.

At Manchester Business School he has established a unique cohort of PhD scholarship students in conjunction with leading UK companies. This is the largest doctoral research group in this specialist are in Europe. He is a regular contributor to programmes at the Executive Development Centre. He also chairs and co-directs the Customer Management Leadership Group.

Professor Murphy holds five professional fellowships and is a member of the International Academy for Quality, whose members are chosen from the most active protagonists of quality in the world.

He is the author of four books, the most recent of which, The Lifebelt: the Definitive Guide to Managing Customer retention, was published in 2001.

Dr. Jamie Burton is a lecturer in Marketing at Manchester Business School and Director of Research for the Customer Management Leadership Group. he won the Yorkshire Water doctoral research scholarship, which allowed him to study for his PhD. He has published research in the areas of customer behaviour, satisfaction and loyalty. Dr Burton is also a regular contributor to the BBC GMR breakfast show business news.

Robin Gleaves and Jan Kitshoff met whilst at Manchester Business School and founded their consultancy in order to develop and implement their thinking in the field of customer profitability. They were involved in a issue and this is where the relationship withy Hon and Jamie began.