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Charles Handy

Charles Handy

Author, pioneering thinker and visionary

Charles Handy was born in Kildare, Ireland in 1932 and is the son of an Archdeacon. He graduated from Oriel College Oxford with first-class honours. After college he worked for Shell International as a marketing executive, economist and management educator in South East Asia before entering the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1972 Handy became a full Professor of the first Business School in Britain, specialising in managerial psychology. From 1977 to 1981, Handy served as Warden of St George’s House in Windsor Castle, a private centre concerned with ethics and values in society. He was Chairman of the RSA from 1987-1989. He holds honour Doctorates and Fellowships from fourteen British universities and one from Trinity College, Dublin. He was appointed CBE in 2000 for his contribution to management development. In 2012 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Thinkers Fifty, a ranking of the leading management thinkers around the world. His main concern is the implication for society and for individuals of the dramatic changes which technology, demography and economics are bringing to the workplace and to all of our lives. His books on these themes which he started writing in 1975 have sold two million copies across the world.