Prof. David Grayson CBE joined Cranfield as director of the new Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility in April 2007, after a thirty year career as a social entrepreneur and campaigner for responsible business, diversity, and small business development. This included the chairmanship of the UK's National Disability Council and several other government bodies, as well as serving as a joint managing-director of Business in the Community – a coalition of leading international companies promoting responsible business.

He is a visiting Senior Fellow at the CSR Initiative of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. He has Masters degrees from the universities of Cambridge and Brussels, and an  from London South Bank University. He has been a Visiting Fellow at several UK and American business schools. His books include: "Corporate Social Opportunity: Seven Steps to make Corporate Social Responsibility work for your business" and "Everybody's Business" (2001) - both co-authored with Adrian Hodges.

The major research interest of the Doughty Centre and of David personally, is how companies embed a commitment to corporate responsibility so that this is built-in to business purpose and strategy rather than being just a bolt-on to business operations; and how this then becomes a source of business opportunities. In particular, David and the Doughty Centre are now looking at how to engage employees at all levels of the company in corporate sustainability and responsibility.