Management Team
Philip Purver
Phil is the Managing Director of The Working Manager Ltd. He takes direct accountability for UK sales and for managing relationships with partners around the globe.
Phil has held several VP and Managing Director roles across the world, mainly in the IT and communications sectors. He has lived in Australia, UK and France and worked with companies in North and South America, Australia and through most European Countries. In addition he has experience of working for and with large and complex companies including Prudential, GE Capital, and Maersk.
He is fluent in French, lives in the UK with his wife and two children, and has many interests including skiing, rugby, horse-riding and travel.
Duncan Norris
Duncan is a director of The Working Manager Ltd. He takes personal accountability for operations and client delivery.
Duncan's 18 years experience includes technical sales support before moving through consulting to executive line management and latterly as a serial entrepreneur. He has worked for some of the world’s largest and most complex corporations, new and innovative start-ups and SMEs across four continents and in virtually every business sector. He has been involved in both the development and implementation of corporate, customer, operational and technology strategy and co-founded a European digital strategy practice while a consultant.
Following his experience as Chief Executive Officer of Royal and SunAlliance's Corporate Venturing division Global Ventures, he went on to found a business development agency focusing on Innovation, Intermediation and Implementation and co-founded a mobile media and infotainment company.
He has been a member of the E-Business Advisory Group to the UK Government, an advisor to the Office of the e-Envoy and participated and spoken at Confederation of British Industry (CBI) e-Business Council seminars. He has been a guest lecturer at London Business School on Corporate Strategy and its evolution in an increasingly electronic and innovative world. His formal qualifications include a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Coventry University and a Diploma in Management Studies from Kingston Business School. He is married with two daughters. His occupations in his spare time are family, films and gadgets.
Dr. David West
Dr David West BA, PhD is Director of Learning for The Working Manager Ltd, and Visiting Professor at University Canada West.
David was educated at Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School and at the Royal Liberty School in the UK. He took a degree in Philosophy at the University of Exeter and later obtained his doctorate in Social Philosophy at the University of Leicester. He taught at the University of Leicester and at Acadia University in Canada.
His early business career was in Ford Motor Company as a buyer. He later joined Rank Xerox where he had successive positions in Personnel Research, Management Development, Marketing, then as General Manager, Scotland and Northern Ireland in which role he gained honours in Sales, Service and Financial performance. Appointed to the International company, he became Head of International Personnel and Public Relations and was awarded the President's award for his introduction of Networking, which became the subject of the book he co-authored (Gower Press.) He went on to be a partner in BDO Binder Hamlyn, the accounting firm.
David has served as Special Adviser to Lord Young of Graffham, the UK Cabinet Minister, as Director of Research for Work and Society and served on committees concerning new forms of work for the British Institute of Management (now the Chartered Management Institute.)
David is married to Jenny, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, and they have two children, one a musician and the other a lawyer. David enjoys 'very average' golf and 'less than average' sailboat racing.
Graham Green
Graham is Chief Technical Officer for The Working Manager Ltd.
His early career was in accounting but he soon developed an interest in the IT world. In this phase, he was first a programmer at ICL and then went on to become Head of IT for the Vestey Group, where he saw not only a computer screen but the implementation of computer projects from Argentina to Western Asutralia.
He was persuaded to leave Vestey's to lead the Computer Literacy project for Rank Xerox, moving the international sales force from product selling to applications and inducting sales people into the world of IT. It was here that he developed an interest in the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation which informs his work with The Working Manager Ltd.
He went on to become Marketing Director (Europe) for digital printing in Xerox, working in just about every capital city from Helsinki to Rome and from Dublin to Warsaw. He later took on an executive role at Cluttons (Chartered Surveyors) before moving on to his current challenge, bringing management learning to a global audience through TheWorkingManager.
Graham is married to Diane and they have three grown up children, one in insurance, another in the literary world and the youngest reading for a degree in Politics. Retired from tennis, he has recently taken up golf for his spare(!) time and lives near Woodbridge in the county of Suffolk in the UK - in fact backing on to a golf course.
Peter Gray
Peter Gray is Chairman of The Working Manager Limited.
Peter’s working life began as trainee in the emerging discipline of Public Relations during the late seventies. Following a short spell working for a Fleet Street based consultancy, Peter joined Imperial Foods as a Product Manager in their Poultry subsidiary Ross Foods, and remained with them before a late entry into the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in 1980.
With his Army career cut short by injury, Peter marked his return to the cut and thrust of business with an appointment as Publishing Director of a Group of titles acquired from IPC Magazines.
During the 90s, Peter established and subsequently sold an internet design and consultancy business before embarking on an extensive period overseeing the development and implementation of a wide range of technological solutions on behalf of clients both global and in the UK.
He is married to Alison. They have 4 children, Nicholas, Charles, Hamish and Georgina and live in the Cotswolds.
