About George

WHO IS GEORGE METCALFE?

george-metcalfe-photo-largeHis lavish abundance of years means George Metcalfe has enjoyed several incarnations:

The business and life coach
The networking expert
The corporate mover and shaker
The media professional
The survivor of the Swinging Sixties
The author
The biker
The public and private man
Currently…

The business and life coach

• George was one of the first life and business coaches in the UK and has coached over 700 people, privately and corporately, over the last 14 years.

• He draws on many of the strategies and techniques developed by Coach University in the USA, the world’s leading coach training organisation, and studied under its founder the late Thomas Leonard, ‘The Father of Modern Coaching’. A brilliantly perceptive New York coach in the early days told George “If you think you’re a coach, you’re a ***** coach”, and he continues his education on coaching, collecting hundreds of books on the subject.

• His background of 35 years as chairman of international public relations firms working in over 30 countries and 14 years as principal of a management consultancy has provided with a wealth of both life and business experience and a unique focus on coaching. He has, in essence, been coaching and training all his life – including training fencing, boxing and pentathlon teams – and professionally working with political and business leaders and members of the public.

• George has always supported and encouraged coaching and other coaches and has found the coaching community in the UK to be one of the most friendly, helpful and generous. He personally knows 200-300 coaches. He was a founding member of the EuroCoach list which enables coaches to communicate with each other, to which he contributes frequently. He has also served as vice president of the UK International Coach Federation

• In 2001 he was co-instrumental in setting up ‘Count Me In’, a free volunteer coaching service of 300 coaches worldwide to support victims of the 11th September disaster anywhere in the world. In 2005, Immediately following 7th July he and international colleagues formed ‘Count Me in Again’ to help anyone affected by the bombing outrages in London which, once again, has attracted help from dozens of coaches worldwide.

The networking expert

George is a passionate advocate of the power of networking and the concept that ‘givers gain’. He is a frequent lecturer on the subject, including his notable ‘Fearless Networking’ seminar, and is a past president of Business Referral Exchange (BRX), the national business networking organisation. He has an extensive database of contacts and has referred or introduced millions of pounds worth of business to other people.

The corporate mover and shaker

• George has worked in many aspects of the oil and gas industry over the last 30 years. For 14 years he was a vice president of the Wendell Phillips Oil Company, which became the largest independent oil concession holder in the world. He has advised Texaco and for 11 years was public relations consultant to Foster Wheeler, one of the world’s largest engineering contractors principally serving the oil, energy and pharmaceutical industries internationally.

• As a consultant to Westinghouse Defence, he was closely involved in setting the strategy resulting in the sale of the Boeing AWACS radar aircraft system to the UK Ministry of Defence.

• At very senior levels he has advised the Pentagon, the government of the Kingdom of Thailand and the government of Cyprus, and worked on inter-governmental projects within the European Union.

• In the financial sector he has launched pan-European mutual funds and taken part in the flotation of public companies. He has assisted in the raising of millions of pounds of finance for new ventures.

• Other major clients have included Distillers, British Gas, Clarks Shoes, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, ICL (now Fujitsu), ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), ISBA (Incorporated Society of British Advertisers), BABT (British Approvals Board for Telecommunications) and Barclays Bank , British Telecom and Cargill, the world’s largest private company, amongst others.

The media professional

George’s professional background includes: devising the original strategy for Thames Television and naming it, taking Capital Radio through its launch, launching S4C, the Welsh Fourth Television Channel, and advising the Association of Independent Radio Contractors. He has run successful campaigns for better public sanitation and was involved at the start of privatisation in the UK.

The survivor of the Swinging Sixties

In recent years, the bulk of George’s work has been working with senior people in the corporate, financial, industrial and high technology sectors, as well as private clients, but during the swinging sixties and seventies he worked closely with Playboy’s Hugh Hefner, launching several language versions of Playboy. He publicised international film companies, films, film stars, the West End theatre and major pop groups (The Doors, Smokey Robinson and The Four Tops to mention just a few). He also wrote and presented his own children’s television series.

The author

One of George’s books, ‘The Presidential Elephants of Zimbabwe’ was written in connection with the Commonwealth Conference in Zimbabwe and presented to HM the Queen and all the prime ministers who attended. His has been the editorial hand behind numerous other books including ghostwriting and editing the award winning ‘China, the Beautiful ’. ‘India the Beautiful ’, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Indian independence was published in 1997. ‘Britain: The Book of the Millennium ’, a coffee table book, sponsored by Kodak, SmithKline Beecham, Rolls Royce and others, was published in 1999 and sold over 30,000 copies. ‘The World’s Finest Spas ’ was published in February 2006 and launched at Harrods. ‘The Magic of Monaco: La Magie De Monaco ’ was published in May 2008. New books in preparation include ‘The Spirit of London 2012’, a sponsored coffee-table book on London connected with the 2012 Olympics. ‘Love at Work’ (to be published in 2009) deals with how professionals handle the emotional aspects of dealing with staff. He is currently working on his own autobiography, ‘In Bed with George!’ which touches on the fact that many coaching sessions on the telephone take place before the client goes to work!

The public and private man

Educated at Radley, and a former Royal Green Jackets army officer, in public life George served as a Westminster City Councillor for eight years, during which time he was a Member of the Inner London Education Authority. Currently he is a Mentor to the Princes Trust. George is married, with three daughters, a son and four grandchildren.

Currently ….

George’s current projects and passions include:

• Apart from working with his own coaching case load of private and corporate clients, George is an associate of Relax for Living. BCMP Interim LLP (providers of top level temporary executives) and Amerex Security Ltd.

• He has served three years on the board of the UK International Coach Federation – one year as a vice president-, is a Fellow of the Institute for Independent Business, Founder President of the London Group, (some 500 independent management consultants) and a former Director of the Institute for Social Psychiatry.

• George lectures widely to groups and businesses, and at various universities, on coaching, personal and business development, including his popular ‘Fearless Networking’ seminar.

• He frequently appears on British television as an expert Coach, representing the UK’s fastest growing profession.

• George is passionate about the facilitation of learning and creating better opportunities for all through improved methods of education and training. He is a director of Hanover Foundations which trains and provides professional coaches to more than 4,000 state secondary school students. He is also immediate past chairman of SEAL (Society for Effective Affective Learning).

For further details please contact George +44 [0]208 670 2122 for further details .