Milford Bateman is a freelance consultant on local economic development policy, since 2005 Visiting Professor of Economics at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia, and currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Development Studies at St Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada. Dr Bateman has published widely on issues of local economic and social development through several edited books on entrepreneurship and SME development and a number of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He is the author of the modestly best-selling book ‘Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work? The Destructive Rise of Local Neoliberalism’ published by Zed Books in 2010. His latest work is a co-edited book with Dr Kate Maclean entitled ‘Seduced and Betrayed: Exposing the Contemporary Microfinance Phenomenon’ which is due out with SAR Press in early 2015. Dr Bateman is the keynote speaker at a Leeds University’s annual event on 6^th November, hosted by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) and the Applied Institute of Research in Economics (AIRE).