James Barlow
Partner
What’s he like then?
James is provocative, playful, gentle and persistent. He is compassionate and challenging, practical and theoretical. Often mistaken, he is happy to explore what was behind his assumptions. He can be infuriatingly helpfully obstructive and precise, or vague.
He engages energetically with the people he finds himself with, bringing curiosity and some irreverence along the way. He wants to explore what it is to be in relationship – with ourselves, with others, with time, with power and with the non-human.
He is fascinated by what our minds do, and how we seem to often over-rule our hearts, guts and bodies in general. He is perplexed and hopeful about our relationship with the non-human, and wonders whether our species will wake up in time from the cannibalism we unconsciously, persistently practice in the name of growth and progress.
He is determined to support people through change by helping them shed unhelpful habits, and build more beneficial practices. He thoroughly enjoys being alongside others for who are committed to their development. extensive spans of time,
What’s he done?
James has 30 years’ strategic and operational experience in FMCGs such as Unilever and PepsiCo.
He has provided senior-level coaching, facilitation, leadership development, strategy and technical consulting to many sectors including automotive, energy, food, technology, defence, NGOs, public bodies and education.
As Director, Responsible & Sustainable Procurement on PepsiCo Europe’s Procurement Leadership Team he developed & executed strategy to challenge & broaden the organizational focus, improve environmental, human rights’ & non-financial risk performance across a multi-billion US$ spend, multiple global supply chains with 1000s of suppliers with many sensitive, dilemma-ridden issues.
He managed PepsiCo’s ‘Global Scenarios & Strategies for 2030’ project where he set a framework for the global Environmental Sustainability strategy by successfully bringing together over 180 global leaders at all levels, & over 40 external experts. This work led to the start of the transformation of PepsiCo’s relationship with agricultural supply base with significant business benefits for PepsiCo & suppliers alike.
Why does he bother?
James is determined to support fellow human beings build constructive and fulfilling relationships with themselves, with the people they interact with, and then the broader (human and non-human) world beyond. To reinvent what being human is, to reconnect with true purpose.
He is passionate about raising our collective consciousness to allow us to deal better with the impeding societal chaos and collapse. He is experimenting compassionately and tenaciously to apply concepts and methodologies such deep adaptation, human expansionism and three horizons into everyday life.
He continually and gently aspires to simply help us all to learn to listen – to ourselves and to others. He learnt early in his career that giving someone a “damn good listening to” was generally helpful. To uncover the space that many of us need to thrive and live a fulfilled life.
He is passionate that his extensive experience demonstrates that so many of the issues, situations, organisations where we find pain and stuckness have their roots in our inability as individuals to acknowledge our determination to construct the world as we see it, rather than how it is – as well of course as archetypal systemic patterns which we find challenging to even see, let alone break from.
Is he qualified?
He is a father, husband, son, brother, friend, and has a fierce inner-critic, so has many relationships to live in. He consistently makes space for his own personal development, be it with others, or alone in the hills. None of means he demonstrates his maturity consistently!
James holds an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice from the University of Bath, and an Meng in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge.
He has professional certification in Integral Development Coaching (a broad approach bringing emotional, relational, cognitive, somatic and spiritual streams to the conversation), the innovative avatar-based ProReal Coaching (team and individual), is an Authorised Global Leadership Profile Coach (exploring how we make sense of the world, and the impact that has on our leadership, ability to change etc) and a Certified Hogan Assessor.
Some quotes to know him by
‘I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.’
John Muir
‘I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river, and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly.’
Thich Nhat Hanh
‘To contact the deeper truth of who we are, we must engage in some activity or practice that questions what we assume to be true about ourselves.’
A H Almaas
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’
Margaret Mead
‘The other is never simply given, never just found or encountered, but made.’
Johannes Fabian
‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’
Victor Frankl
‘You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.’
Jeanette Winterson
Back to team