Professor Dominic Houlder

Dominic Houlder engagements typically involve a mix of seminars, action-oriented workshops, client events and coaching with the most senior levels of firms world-wide.

Areas of Specialisation
Dominic is often described as “the Buddhist Charles Handy”, because he gives confidence to those he coaches to engage with clarity about their convictions, fearlessness and compassion.  He helps leaders to strengthen creative connections with their clients and colleagues. He advises on how to create innovation, use strategic conversations, and how to strengthen effective collaboration across lines of service, geographical boundaries and external partner organisations.

Career Background
Dominic joined the Squire group  Mexico.  He became Group Strategy Director at Blue Circle Industries plc in 1989. In this role he was responsible for managing the Group’s business planning systems, lead merger and acquisition programmes and coached executives to develop and implement corporate & business level strategy.

After 15 years with London Business School’s Sloan Fellowship, his programme attracts highly successful, senior professionals who are at career/life turning points and looking to make transitions into major leadership roles. He has designed and leads London Business School’s new executive workout programme “Unlocking Your Client’s Strategy”, and co-led the Australian Graduate School of Management’s consortium programme for the leadership teams of professional service firms.

Client Organisations
Dominic works with major professional service firms such as PwC, SAP and Saatchi & Saatchi. He has also worked with business and government institutions on developing strategic supplier relationships with their professional advisers.  He has worked in the food, aluminium, speciality steels, consumer finance, banking, shipbuilding, oil refining, textiles, nuclear engineering and offshore oil services.

Qualifications, Training and Experience
After graduating from Cambridge he took his MBA at Stanford Business School.  At London Business School he won the School’s Distinguished Faculty Contribution Award for 2002 and Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award for 2003. He was Associate Dean of the Sloan Fellowship Programme from 2002-5.

Publications
Dominic’s publications include the books Strategy and Mindfulness and Money, and articles including How Your Corporation Can Avoid a Mid-Life Crisis (Sloan Management Review) and Do Your Commitments Match Your Convictions (in Harvard Business Review).