What matters to me

I have been extraordinarily lucky to live a life of such breadth of experience:

Bio

As a result, two abiding interests have gradually crystallised as my mission in life:

• How we need to change our behaviours and institutions for our children and grandchildren to have a reasonable chance of rising to the immense challenges confronting humanity in the 21st century and beyond
• Helping young leaders and entrepreneurs emerge and develop

Whereas my research on societal change is immense in its scope and ambition and a new area where any success will largely be defined by how much I can get others involved, working with young leaders and entrepreneurs keeps me grounded in practical and professional terms; it is also hugely enjoyable and rewarding.

What I do

My time is split between research and professional services.

Research

With an economics training and social science background and having worked all round the world, mainly on initiatives between the public and private sectors, I have become ever more concerned as to how poorly prepared humanity is for the multiple and complex challenges facing us. These challenges are perhaps best summed up by the following 2009 quote from E O Wilson, a sociobiologist and Emeritus Harvard Professor. He said:

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.”

Having spent a career battling medieval institutions and the vagaries of human nature in circumstances where the technical answers were often the relatively easy part, I trained as an executive coach. Although coaching is typically a one-to-one pursuit, it gradually dawned on me that its techniques, suitably adapted, could have an important role to play in the public domain. In short, I hypothesised that a coaching mentality could help communities and societies achieve consensus and find the will both to overcome increasingly intractable and threatening challenges and to get on with implementing agreed solutions.

To my surprise and delight, my peers have accepted my intuition about coaching which, at first sight, may appear rather idealistic, if not downright eccentric! I have been greatly honoured to receive the inaugural Juan Coto Award in August 2021 from Meyler Campbell to conduct research into coaching, public conversations and political leadership.

Juan Coto Award Winner 2021 – Meyler Campbell news release

Research

Professional services

As my bio indicates, I have been lucky enough to get all round in-depth experience that has varied from helping change command to market economies and leading the development and reorganisation of niche industries to helping develop successful businesses, as well as learning invaluable lessons from seeing some fail. My experience includes: working for several years in the leading western team advising Russian reformers on developing a market economy following the collapse of communism; guiding different industries through rapid growth, reform and rescue, respectively, and seeing the huge contrasts from various perspectives; helping set up a business that developed into market leader in its specialist niche, being but one example of a rich variety of business roles that I have performed.

I am passionate about passing on this wonderful experience to emerging leaders.

Although I am still available for occasional consulting work, my main interest these days is supporting emerging leaders and entrepreneurs. My support varies from pure coaching through a combination of coaching and mentoring to advisory work.

• I sit on the CEO’s advisory board for a fast-growing tech company alongside a key investor. Together we have helped guide the CEO through the pandemic and two funding rounds towards leadership of his market segment.
• I coach and mentor entrepreneurs and CEOs in the UK and around the world. This includes the various stages from initial conceptualisation and early-stage business development to the trials and tribulations of managing rapid growth.
• My portfolio of coaching clients includes emerging political leaders, entrepreneurs, key workers in health services during the pandemic, developing leaders in professional services and executive MBA students at leading business schools.

Professional services