Mick Yates is an independent researcher, photographer, and writer based in Corsley, England. After a career leading global businesses (P&G, J&J, dunnhumby), board level non-profit work, and technology start-ups, he is Visiting Professor, Interdisciplinary Ethics Applied, at the University of Leeds.
Today, he focuses on the ethics of photography and on the ethical implications of data & artificial intelligence technologies. Mick was a Stakeholder Board member on the EU SHERPA project (Shaping the Ethical dimensions of smart information systems) which informed the 2024 EU AI regulations.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and holds Master’s degrees in both Photography and Change Management. His first degree was Mathematics & Philosophy. Mick is a co-founder of the Change Leaders community of practice, drawn from HEC / Oxford Alumni of the Consulting & Coaching for Change program.
Mick is also a co-founder of Photo|Frome, an international festival of photography whose third edition was in 2025.
He has photographed continuously since he began recording his home town, Burton upon Trent, as a teenager. Mick’s travel, street and documentary work has since generated a substantial archive, some of which is used in teaching, and which also leads to his interest in ‘place’.
In 1999, with his wife Ingrid, he co-founded a primary-school programme in the Khmer Rouge Reconciliation Areas of Cambodia in partnership with Save the Children and the Cambodian Ministry of Education. Mick was then a Trustee of Save the Children (USA). Ingrid and Mick received Medals for National Reconstruction from the Royal Government of Cambodia.
In 2019, Mick completed a long-form documentary project on the aftermath of the Genocide. The project combined photography, video, and bilingual Khmer–English testimony to tell the previously unheard stories of survivor-educators who became close family friends. His book, Unfinished Stories: From Genocide to Hope was published in 2019, printed in Phnom Penh.