A brief bio of Myles Downey, founder of the School of Coaching in the UK.
Myles Downey is the Founder and Managing Director of The School of Coaching in the U.K., which he established in association with The Work Foundation (formerly The Industrial Society), with the aim of “developing great coaches who can transform the performance of individuals and teams in organizations.” The School specializes in working with the leadership and management population to improve business performance.
Mr. Downey is recognized as one of the foremost coaches in Europe and has worked with some of the most successful organizations in the World; across most of Europe, North and South America, Asia and in the CIS, and in a variety of businesses, from professional service firms, banking, manufacturing, oil and gas, brewing and distilling, retailing, construction and information technology. The predominant part of his work is in coaching senior executives and leadership teams.
He is the author of “Effective Coaching: Lessons from the Coach’s Coach.” He also contributed to “Coaching for Leadership Development” and to “The International Guide to Management Consultancy.” Articles published through the School of Coaching include “The Place of Coaching in the Line-Managers Role” and “Buying Executive Coaching.” He has appeared twice on BBC Radio 4.
Mr. Downey was studied architecture and practiced in Dublin. Then, having read “The Inner Game of Tennis,” by Tim Gallwey, he began to work as a coach, initially in sport and then in business. He moved to London and was a founding member of a small, successful consultancy, which the Economist Intelligence Unit acknowledged in 1993 and in 1995 as the leading provider of Executive Coaching in the U.K., which he left in 1995 to investigate a wider variety of approaches to maximizing learning and performance. He established the School of Coaching in 1997.