DANIEL Dobson-Mouawad is a man who has quite literally gone full circle.

His soft, continental accent belie his origins, but Daniel was in fact "made in Manchester". He was born in Altrincham and educated for some time in Timperley before he left the UK with his parents to live - and later work - in Europe and the Middle East.

Daniel's ancestry too throws up some interesting links to the city: his mother's family name is Lees, his great-great-grandfather was the Mayor of Oldham and his great uncle was the chief water surveyor for the Manchester Ship Canal.

He left the region as a child; his Lebanese father was a hotelier and his work took the family round the world.

"Moving around gave me the travel bug," Daniel smiles. "I was very keen to expand my horizons educationally and later through my job by picking up opportunities in Paris, Frankfurt, Bologna, the Middle East and Africa."

More than three decades on and Daniel lives in Sale. He returned initially to play a key role in Manchester's transformation two years ago as a director at the Economic Development Agency, unifying Greater Manchester's 10 boroughs behind one collective economic plan.

Two months ago, Daniel joined pro.manchester - an organisation that brings professional opportunities in the city by promoting it as a vital place to do business - and he waxes lyrically about how pleased he is to be part of a team that is transforming Manchester into a world-class city.

Gaunlet

He hopes Manchester will present him with his next big challenge, and that is in itself something of a gauntlet: Daniel has previously presided over the London Docklands and Thames Gateway regenerations, and run the largest improvement scheme the UKhas seen, in the shape of the London Thames Gateway partnership.

"I wanted a challenge that was just as significant as London Thames Gateway, but at the same time I didn't want to have to go abroad to find it. Manchester was head and shoulders above any city in terms of the prospect of providing the relevant platform for schemes to get really involved with.

"There's a keen driver in me that wants to see things happen, I get impatient and I don't like to see opportunities getting lost. I remember in my first job in local government I was taken to one side and informed that it would take me three months to do a job that I knew I could do in two weeks. It was very nearly off-putting for the rest of my career."

Surprisingly, Daniel left school at 16. Since then, he's had only one day off sick and has held a number of high-flying roles in building, structural engineering and even academia with the University College London Initiative.

"I ended up working on some developments that I felt really shouldn't have been built, and went into planning to decide whether they should be built in the first place. But I rapidly recognised that it isn't the planning discipline but the economic arguments that bring about development."

And it is that recognition that brought the 39-year-old into his current niche. Daniel is very much a self-made man. He put himself through an engineering degree alongside his full-time career and says he wants his life to have an impact.

He believes Manchester is among the world's finest cities but sees his task as using the Manchester moniker as "an attack brand" to turn it from a "beta city into an alpha city".

His recollections of the city during his younger years, though, are that Manchester was a "no-go area" for individuals and businesses. "But now government identifies Manchester readily as the UK regeneration capital. They look at the city and say, `What a fantastic turnaround Manchester has had'," says Daniel.

"That ability to grow and promote itself has been Manchester's strength. You can go out and see the cranes, you can see how economically active it is, you can see that we're creating jobs, that we're generating the right kind of academic institutions. It's happening, and its growing exponentially."

Keen

Daniel is a keen proponent of business leadership councils and political decentralisation. In the next ten years, pro.manchester is looking to bring an additional 164,000 jobs in the professional and financial sectors, a sector that already employs 218,000 in the city, and accelerate productivity by é14bn.

But Manchester must simultaneously address infrastructure issues, including transport, workforce, IT connectivity and housing, while the country must be persuaded to look outside its capital.

"The UK is still overtly London-centric where other countries around the world aren't that focused on their capital. Our agenda for Manchester requires us to support wider economic growth but also develop very niche services.

"We need to benefit to a greater extent from our educational establishments, to ensure that PPP and PFI niches come to the fore and that our services are taken to the market if we want to develop the most significant city outside London."

And while Daniel takes great satisfaction in seeing the region prosper, he equally enjoys taking in the leisure facilities that the region has and spending time with his three children - Hebe, Bertie and Beau.

He says: "I like to get out - we have phenomenal countryside here as well as a strong cultural history.

"But I never use a car, I always use public transport, and why shouldn't I? I like to think that I live the life that others lead - if you don't, how can you hope to change things for the better?" Tweet