Chris Khamis is a Director of CSK Strategies. An economist by training with 29 years experience of regeneration and local economic development, Chris is known nationally for his work in building effective partnerships and in developing regeneration programmes that deliver. As a founding Director of CSR Partnership, he worked on a wide range of cutting edge assignments in the field of regeneration and renewal. This has included bid and delivery preparation, baseline analyses, strategy and programme development, partnership capacity building, consultation and stakeholder engagement, management advice, evaluations and succession planning for virtually every major regeneration initiative of the past 20 years including the Urban Programme, Task Forces, City Challenge, European Funding, SRB, New Deal for Communities, Neighbourhood Renewal and Neighbourhood Management, Regional Development Agencies and Housing Market Renewal. His “specialism is his generalism” with a capacity to knit together strategies and action plans which are owned by a diverse range of stakeholder from the public, private and voluntary/community sector. Chris is currently part-time Interim Chief Executive of the Birmingham Leadership Foundation which aims to open up pathways and catalyse supportive connections for the next generation of leaders in Birmingham, a generation which must reflect the city’s demography. He is also assisting the City Council in a large scale consultation exercise around its 2012-2013 budget. In recent years, Chris was part of the core management team of the AWM-funded Minority Ethnic Enterprise Centre of Expertise (MEECOE) between Dec 2008 – Dec 2010, an exciting initiative that promoted a strategic and innovative approach to supporting ethnic minority businesses in the West Midlands. MEECOE was a consortium led by Profesor Monder Ram of De Montford University’s Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (Crème) which has bow evolved into the national Enterprise and Diversity Alliance (EDA). Chris has continued to work with Crème and the EDA, producing research and policy briefings and a live blog at the 15th Annual Ethnic Minority Business Conference. Chris also worked closely with Birmingham’s neighbourhood management programme over the past two years, facilitating the Neighbourhood Practitioners Forum and producing the end of programme report. He is also a Director of Urban Archive CIC, a not-for-profit company developing a living legacy of regeneration in the region which is accessible to local communities, schools and researchers. In previousl yeasr Chris was involved in neighbourhood profiling and action planning in preparation for devolved management of services and in advising Local Strategic Partnerships including assisting in the production of Community Plans and Local Area Agreements. Alongside this, Chris’s work has included the introduction of performance management, monitoring and appraisal systems, and assistance with the introduction of commissioning approaches to service development. He has a strong interest in equality and diversity issues. In addition, economic impact studies, impact evaluations and labour market research has been a particular interest of Chris’s work, including the first economic impact study of the Notting Hill Carnival. Prior to becoming a consultant, Chris was Chief Executive of a pacemaker City Challenge Partnership in Wolverhampton . This was a successful multi-faceted 5-year programme including significant initiatives in economic development, education and training, community development, health, community safety and housing. Prior to this he was Head of Training and Employment Development at Wolverhampton Council and, before that, the Engineering Industries Training Board’s Economist. Chris serves on BURA’s Best Practice in Regeneration Panel for over 10 years and was a Neighbourhood renewal and Local Improvement Adviser. He is an enthusiastic member of the Lunar Society in Birmingham, a Director of Wolverhampton Science Park, and a member of the Board of TLC College, a community-based education, training and social regeneration project located in the multi-ethnic neighbourhood of Whitmore Reans in Wolverhampton. Full CV | chris@csk-strategies.co.uk