He attended Eggar's Grammar School, Alton, from 1970 to 1976, and then the University of Bristol, from which he graduated with a BSc in Geology and Zoology in 1980 and a PhD in Behavioural Science in 1985. In 1998, he was awarded a Diploma in counselling and psychotherapy from the University of Surrey, and then, in 2001 he was ordained by The New Seminary, Oxford, as an Interfaith Minister and spiritual counsellor.
Career
Graham's initial career was with The Middlesex Hospital and Exxon, before he joined Coopers and Lybrand as a specialist in organisation development. His consultancy career continued until 2003, when he became self-employed, operating under his own name. Today, he has a portfolio career as a leadership counsellor/mentor, a workplace chaplain, and wedding celebrant.
Leadership counsellor/mentor
Working individually, with senior managers, usually meeting on a monthly basis for a prolonged period, Graham combines his understanding of business and organisations generally with his psychotherapy experience to help these leaders be even more effective. While his “Conversations with Leaders” are entirely confidential, they focus on the interplay between the individual, their role and the organisation, exploring corporate strategy, the leader's tactics and the nature of their human relationships at work. His clients speak glowingly of him, and he is thought to have been behind the emergence of a number of astute, high impact leaders in the City and elsewhere.
Workplace chaplain
In 2005, succeeding David Welbourn, and along with Susan van Beveren, Graham was appointed by QinetiQ plc as part-time Joint Coordinator of Chaplaincy Services and as a chaplain to their Farnborough site. In these roles, they help the organisation and its people to develop emotionally, spiritually and ethically, encouraging people to find meaning in their work. They achieve this through dialogue with leaders, convening discussion groups, running personal development workshops, conducting research into work-based spirituality, and a number of other individual and group interventions. With their pioneering approach, Susan and Graham are increasingly recognised internationally as leading a major change in work-based chaplaincy.
Wedding celebrant
Since his ordination in 2001, Graham has become known for devising and conducting spiritually-based blessing ceremonies throughout Europe, for couples with a sense of the spiritual, who do not feel that they are embraced by mainstream religions. While his clients have included some 'celebrities' and 'society' couples under the glare of the media, most of his services are conducted in private with the couple and their friends and families. One couple were quoted as saying; "What was extraordinary was that he , helped us to understand our own sense of the spiritual and express this to one another and to our families in ways that we hadn't dreamt of. And he did this without once telling us what he believed in or what we should believe in."
Whilst at University, Graham began to contribute articles on a broad range of topics mainly, though not exclusively, in the non-fiction arena. He has contributed to popular computing, photography, business, management and general science publications. His first book was published in 1991, jointly written with Prof Tony Bendell and Robert Millar. Since then he has written six other management titles, each of which has been translated widely and sold internationally. He has had three short stories published in relatively obscure literary magazines. Books Taguchi Methodology within Total Quality – Problem Solving and Decision Making – On Route to Perfection – Making Change Happen – Self Managed Team Working – Problem Solving – Six Sigma and the Product Development Cycle –
Honours
In 1995 Graham was made a Distinguished Fellow of The Institute of Directors, India, alongside Dr Genichi Taguchi, the renowned Japanese industrialist. In 1993 the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, London, made him a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellow. Through this he travelled to India, Japan and the USA, exploring self-directed working groups. This research was subsequently published by the Financial Times.
