Manny has been a leader in the field of public sector partnership and collaborative working for over 30 years, first as Chief Executive of the Enterprise Agency in Derby and thereafter as Managing Director for Business Link Nottinghamshire. Prior to that, he was a Director with Coats Viyella PLC.

He co-founded of Shared Service Architecture Ltd (SSA) in 2009, and specialised in equipping individuals and public sector organisations with the skills and knowledge to successfully initiate and implement innovative shared service and collaborative transformation solutions. He has authored six books on collaborative leadership and shared services. He has taught over 3000 professionals from across the public and private sectors in the skills to manage collaborations, shared services, and partnership working.

His experience is with top level facilitation and leadership development, both at political and operational level, covering local government, fire and rescue services, police, health, and social care, further and higher education, LEPs and housing associations.

Manny is leading the LGA’s Leadership Academy team delivering political leadership development, LGA Leaders Programme, LGA coaching for councillors as well as former LGA’s Leadership Essentials. Manny is also leading the WLGA Leadership Programme facilitation team since 2022. 

Manny’s local government leadership facilitation includes supporting political leaders and SLTs to find common ground and priorities for collaboration, articulate their shared strategic narrative, explore new options for improvement, consider the leadership implications, develop action plans and build ‘in-house’ collaborative leadership capacity to accelerate the scale and pace of their collaborative transformation ambitions.

He has also advised numerous public sector organisations and strategic boards on the practicalities of moving from ‘intent’ to ‘implementation’, supporting the development of collaboration strategies and practices that help them to make change happen across complex systems.

He was also a former visiting lecturer at University of Derby on collaborative leadership. Manny is a Fellow of Shared Service Architects, Fellow of the Institute of Business Consultants, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a member of the Institute of Directors.