Professor Maurice Biriotti OBE is Chief Executive and co-founder of SHM. He has over twenty-five years of expertise, working with the boards and senior teams of many of the world’s leading companies and government bodies.

SHM was built on the insight that human motivation sits at the root of all business success and is critical to business innovation and the delivery of competitive advantage. Maurice has applied this insight successfully across both the public and private sectors, and it remains at the heart of all the work the company carries out.

In the private sector, Maurice works with global corporations both in the UK and internationally, to guide major change initiatives, build capabilities and manage the operational health of relationships. In addition to leading the firm’s consulting work, Maurice is often called upon to act as an advisor to C-level executives. Some of his formal appointments in this regard have been in several FTSE100 businesses.

In the public sector, Maurice has worked with government departments across the health, education and transport sectors, using research into the motivations of citizens and members of these organisations to improve their cultures, processes, structures and ways of working.

In both sectors, he is looked upon as a peer and partner to the senior management boards he works with, and he is valued for his unusual insights, clarity of thinking, and ability to cut through to the real issues.

Before co-founding SHM in 1996, Maurice attended the University of Cambridge, achieving an MA in Classics and an MPhil in Latin American Studies. He then became a full-time academic, and held posts at the Universities of Cambridge, Birmingham and Zurich. Today, Maurice is a Professor of Applied Humanities at University College London (UCL), Faculty of Arts & Humanities. Maurice continues to apply his academic background in Literature and Classics to interdisciplinary research studies. His published work covers literature, philosophy, anthropology and the dynamics of cultural change. Maurice is fluent in French, Spanish and Italian and is currently learning Russian.

Outside of his commercial and academic life, Maurice is active in the arts and the charitable sector. He is currently the Chairman and Trustee of the Bloomsbury Festival, and a Trustee of Body & Soul, an innovative charity addressing the effects of childhood adversity. He also co-founded the SHM Foundation.

Maurice was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) honour in the British King’s New Year Honours List in 2024 for services to Business, Academia and Philanthropy.