Alastair Grant – Principal

Alastair Grant set up Alastair Grant & Co in 2005 after founding GPB Consulting 13 years previously. Alastair has coached and advised top management, typically Chairmen, Chief Executives, Managing Directors and Finance Directors. His senior corporate clients have included Arup, Airbus Industrie, Balfour Beatty, Calyon, Hewlett Packard, Gerling, The Metropolitan Police, NASDAQ and The Royal Mail

He has also designed a new and highly successful approach to running group workshops for upper and mid-level management. For twelve years he has run Capita’s senior level Advanced Presentation Skills course. (Formerly The Industrial Society) This course has introduced new ideas into the public domain and resulted in a request to write the book ‘Presentation Perfect’. This is now in its second edition. He enabled a joint venture with VOX of Geneva which uses software to measure the ‘persuasiveness’ of the human voice. This ground breaking development has significantly raised levels of performance.

He advises on specific projects including major conferences such as the Suppliers Launch Conference for the Airbus 380 and a trade sale of an ICI subsidiary

His approach is robust but not prescriptive, based on a belief that success in presenting well is not about learning a set of strict guidelines but on meeting three criteria:

• Delivering in a positive engaging style: Personalities are important.
• Ensuring that key points are remembered and recalled later by audiences.
• Individuals are adept at building trust, are skilled at asking questions and listen well. They learn to be versatile in dealing with others.

Much of his work is in Europe; Increasingly English is the business language there. Executives whose mother tongue is not English find it a challenge to be inspirational. They also need to use words that are understood by non-English audiences.

Alastair served in the Royal Marines, leaving at the age of 44 in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He worked in the Yemen, Singapore and the USA for a number of years, which gave him an interest and insight into different cultures. Quite a large part of his service career was spent developing other people's skills; in particular he spent two years directing the studies of senior civil servants, police and other government officers in higher management skills. A key part of this was in communicating effectively both on paper and verbally.

Born in 1944, married, with two teenage children. He lives in West London and is chairman of the local Scouts and Cubs. He has enjoyed a wide variety of outdoor activities including one Trans-Atlantic crossing by sail in a 26 foot boat – a long time ago!