A message from our New Chair Alex Forsythe

Dear members 

I am honoured to be the new Chair of the Association for Business Psychology at the start of what will be challenging, but I hope a better year for all of us. With the announcement that a vaccine has arrived, the enforced social experiment that is Covid-19 isn’t ending just yet, but humans now have a stronger arsenal for the battle.

We Business Psychologists can roll up our sleeves, get out there and start shaping the post-pandemic workplace. Our capacity to harness the best and repair the worst will be invaluable, and let’s be frank; we have a lot of material to work with. Covid’s tiny infectious particles have pushed our workforces’ limits through relentless video conferencing meetings, job insecurity, loneliness, PPE, long shifts, no shifts, furlough, unemployment and let’s not forget the enormity of the sickness and loss.

We now have a new appreciation of the value and effectiveness of homeworking, integrated family life, and how the NHS and our schools are the essences of a healthy and productive society. A post-Covid world will bring strong tailwinds behind mental health, physical health and education, which is great news for business psychology.

To survive, we all need to advance our partnerships and connections with those who can create the knowledge and technology that will change human behaviour. At the ABP, we will work tirelessly to help you pick up the batons of opportunity that will come your way, run with them and pass them on through your networks.

So, on that note, I must leave you all to carve the turkey, open the wine, sing around the fire and think about our beautiful friends and family who keep us sane and laughing through all the absurdity of life.

About our chair

Alex has been a board member with the Association for Business Psychology since 2016. She began her ABP career working closely with Emeritus Chair Steve Apps on the design of our members Certification pathway, then leading on the design and implementation of the ABP standards for university accreditation.

Professionally Alex bridges the gap between academia and business. She is a Chartered Psychologist, psychometrician and BPS test specialist who has run her own consultancy business since 2010, she is also Professor of Applied Psychology and Academic Lead for Virtual Learning at the University of Wolverhampton.