Sir Howard Bernstein was a British local government officer who was the chief executive of Manchester City Council from 1998 to 2017. Originally joining the Council as a junior clerk, he became the chief executive in 1998, responsible for setting development goals and encouraging investment in the city. He served as honorary professor of Politics at the University of Manchester. In a Harvard University interview in 2022 when asked what was the most important factor in his work, he said, "it’s the whole concept of place leadership."