Experience

After an early career in the private sector I have been lucky to spend my working life in senior leadership roles - executive and non-executive - in well known non-profit organisations - UK and international.  

Executive  I was a CEO three times, first with Relate, the UK’s leading relationship counselling agency.  From there I moved to the Commonwealth Institute and subsequently the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, both working internationally.

I came to each of those organisations with no prior knowledge of its field of work: their common ingredient was the need for transformative change.  I had to learn fast, and I came to rely most on imagination, bringing an open mind to the challenges I faced; resourcefulness in bringing people together, generating energy for change; and not infrequently courage in reaching for the strongest solutions. A good sense of humour always helped to oil the wheels.

Non-executive  I was appointed in 2023 to the Chapter (governing body) of Salisbury Cathedral as a Lay Member.  I am also an Associate of the Step on Board programme which recruits senior business leaders as charity trustees.  Other recent appointments include Chair of Y Care International, the development agency of the YMCA movement; and I was a member of the Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households the report of which, Love Matters, (2023) has been described as ‘quietly explosive’.

I graduated as an executive coach with Meyler Campbell in 2015 and I am also a qualified Myers Briggs (MBTI) practitioner - the best known and most widely used psychometric instrument.  I am a graduate of Durham University (Politics, Sociology and Psychology), the Henley General Management Course and of the Cabinet Office Top Management Programme; and I am a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

I work with senior and emerging leaders across the private, not-for-profit and public sectors; and my portfolio includes MBA graduates from the Judge Business School, Cambridge.

My coaching is most influenced by the work of Nancy Kline and her seminal Time to Think; and by the Positive Psychology movement pioneered by Martin Seligman.

My wife Sarah, a nutritional therapist, and I live in west Dorset, England, with our French spaniel, Lusken.  We have four married sons and a small army of grandchildren.  I am a lapsed sailor but I’ve never lost my appetite for challenging projects.