Charles is Professor of Business History and Management at Newcastle University Business School. His research focuses upon the historical processes that inform contemporary business practices, entrepreneurial philanthropy, and the exercise of power by elites. He became involved in collaborative research (with Gordon, Maclean and Shaw) on entrepreneurship, wealth and philanthropy as part of the Strathclyde University spoke of the ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP). He is motivated by the belief that inequalities in incomes, wealth, power, opportunities and social conditions across the world have become ethically and practically indefensible. He believes that philanthropy offers a possible way forward, but that this must be founded on greater understanding of the enmeshed economic, social, political and ideological forces at play in generating, legitimizing and sustaining inequalities. Remedy, he argues, depends crucially on the availability of better, more challenging research that helps in setting agendas for ambitious philanthropic endeavours.
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