M. May Seitanidi

M. May Seitanidi, PhD (FRSA, SFHEA) is Reader in Strategy & Corporate Social Responsibility at Kent Business School, University of Kent, UK. Her research focuses on nonprofit-business partnerships.

May is interested in the role of collaboration as a facilitating agent for individual (micro) organisational (meso) and social change (macro) that promote cross sector social interactions.

In her book The Politics of Partnerships. A Critical Examination of Nonprofit-Business Partnerships she argues that in order to achieve profound change we need to address the deficit of Overt Functional Conflict (OFC). Organisations should publicly challenge their partners in order to facilitate mind-set changes that can lead in organisational and societal (systemic) changes and sustainable outcomes.

Previously s visiting fellow at the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR), Nottingham University Business School, a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a Visiting Professor at LUISS Business School, Rome-Italy, elected in 2011 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

Her work for over 30 years, as a practitioner and academic, focused on all types of cross-sector social interactions, previously on philanthropy and socio-sponsorship and currently on social partnerships.

She is the founder of the Hellenic Sponsorship Centre (1994), the magazine “Sponsors and Sponsorships” (1995) and the “Annual Review of Social Partnerships” (2006) promoting cross-sector social interactions for the social good. In 2007 she founded the International Symposia Series on Cross-Sector Social Interactions organized by academics at leading universities around the world.

She has served as a consultant and trainer for many private, public, and non-governmental organizations. Books include: The Politics of Partnerships(2010, short-listed for the SIM 2013 Best Book Award), Social Partnerships and Responsible Business. A Research Handbook (2013, co-authored with Andrew Crane) and Creating Value in Nonprofit-Business Collaborations (2014, co-authored with James Austin).