Newcastle University Business School has appointed Atom Bank founder and chairman, Anthony Thomson as its new Goldman Visiting Professor.

Replacing Harry Swan, managing director of Thomas Swan & Co Ltd, Anthony’s entrepreneurial thinking and innovative ways of doing business, made him the ideal candidate for the 2017 professorship.

Mr Thompson will deliver a series of public lectures, while also overseeing a cohort of students from the Business School and its partner institutions: Boston University’s Questrom School of Business; the University of Groningen; and Fudan University through marketing, innovation and financial crime internships at Atom Bank.

He will also work alongside MBA students on an exciting business case competition, where students will be asked to consider global challenges that could affect Atom Bank, and recommend innovative solutions to those issues. This competition will conclude during the MBA’s Business in Action Week, which sees students working with a number of global businesses and putting what they have learned through academia into real world practice

Anthony said: “I was honoured to be invited to become the David Goldman Visiting Professor for 2017/18. Being originally from the North East, I am very proud of the contribution that the region makes to national and global innovation, enterprise and education, and I look forward to helping the business school develop the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.

“Over the next 12 months, I look forward to building upon the excellent work of my predecessors and – along with my colleagues from Atom Bank – challenging and stimulating the students to help develop their skills, experience and expertise.”

Having set up the UK’s first online only bank, Anthony is no stranger to innovation in enterprise, and his first public lecture for the Business School will be the annual David Goldman Lecture: ‘Innovation, enterprise and a car in a field full of horses’, which will be held at 6.30pm on Wednesday March 15.

In addition to the Visiting Professorship, the Goldman endowment funds permanent David Goldman Chair, Savvas Papagiannidis who will work closely with Anthony on a number of research projects.

Andrew Goldman said: “The Goldman family is delighted to hear of the appointment of Anthony Thomson, and we are very much looking forward to hearing Anthony’s lecture on the 15^th March. We are anticipating an exciting year ahead where Business School students will be able to work on a number of enterprising and innovative projects.

“The endowment has developed in a very positive direction in recent years with appointment of a series of very interesting and well experienced David Goldman Visiting Professors. We would like to thank Harry Swan for his time and dedication over the past year. He has brought new life into the Goldman Professorship and it’s wonderful to see that our father’s legacy is able to continue to contribute to the regeneration of the regional economy by providing a platform for innovation entrepreneurship.”