Douglas Board
What’s it like to work with Douglas? Click on a picture for an opinion.
Nigel Harris
After a successful career in the City, he became chief of staff of Save The Children UK and now runs FARM Africa.
“Douglas has an empathetic and thoughtful style: he looks to the heart of what you’re trying to do. His counselling is allied to rigorous analysis, helping you put your aspirations into the context of the outside world.”
Usha Prashar
A leader in both voluntary and public sectors, holding media and academic board positions, and a member of the House of Lords.
“He’s a very good listener with a great deal of empathy, but still penetrating and rigorous. He absorbs what you’re saying, then comes back with very good ideas – he’s quite a lateral thinker.”
Millie Banerjee
Senior telecoms executive in the UK and internationally, with board experience at Ofcom and the Cabinet Office.
“His huge integrity genuinely sets him apart. He listens with his mind, not just his ears, and guides you to think laterally and deeply. He’s also a good judge of what you can do – even when you think you can’t."
Crispin Manners
Entrepreneur who has grown several communications businesses.
“He has great listening skills, and looks beyond the obvious. He’s able, gently, to get people to open up and challenge their own thinking. After a conversation with Douglas you usually walk away seeing your life from a new perspective.”
Richard Gillingwater
Successively a senior investment banker, government adviser and business school dean.
"An immensely intelligent and empathetic individual who offers marvellous perceptions and good, lucid advice about pitfalls and opportunities. He also has a rare quality: shining integrity."
The steps to Maslow’s Attic
Douglas Board’s CV
Born in Hong Kong, in 2010 Douglas completed a doctorate in management at the University of Hertfordshire. He has a first class honours degree from Cambridge and a master’s from Harvard, and more than 12 years’ experience as an executive coach specialising in careers, top level leadership and power and politics in organisations.
He has published five books on leadership, including two applied research, two satirical novels and most recently ‘Elites: can you rise to the top without losing your soul?’ (2021). For more of Douglas’s writing please see douglasboard.com.
Douglas started his career as a civil servant in the Treasury. As an executive search consultant, and then deputy chairman of his firm, he developed a thorough knowledge of senior roles in the private, public, academic and NGO sectors. He was a trustee, and then treasurer, of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and chair of the Refugee Council, then Britain’s largest refugee charity. He is an honorary senior visiting fellow at the business school at City, University of London. In 2019 he became one of the five non-lawyer members of the Queen’s Counsel Selection Panel.