Gerard Fairtlough

Author, speaker and management thinker Gerard Fairtlough trained initially as a biochemist at Cambridge University. He worked for 25 years in the Royal Dutch Shell group, where he spent the last 5 years as Chief Executive of Shell Chemicals UK.

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In 1980 he founded the biopharmaceuticals firm Celltech and remained its chief executive until 1990. Since that time he has been involved in the formation of a number of high-tech businesses. Gerard has served as an advisor to several UK government and academic institutions. He has been Specialist Advisor to the British House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, Chair of the Advisory Panel on Science Policy Research at the University of Sussex, and a member of the UK Science and Engineering Council.

Gerard Fairtlough has developed and elaborated Triarchy Theory and is the author of The Three Ways of Getting Things Done: Hierarchy, Heterarchy & Responsible Autonomy in Organisations, Creative Compartments: A Design for Future Organisation, and co-author with Julie Allan and Barbara Heinzen of The Power of the Tale: Using Narratives for Organisational Success. He has also written extensively on the theory and practice of organization design and management and of innovation.