Life After DPIR - Mr John Gelling
Alumni 1959, Keble College
Summary
I served in The Royal Air Force (Air Traffic Control – 1957 - 1959) in Germany and Aden before attending university, where I studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Keble College 1959 – 1962).
The military experience helped to transform me from a Bristol Grammar School boy to a young man prepared for university and for all the life opportunities that could and did subsequently present themselves.
I threw myself into life at Oxford beyond academics. I played rugby and squash and athletics. I became immersed in the United Nations Student Association which was then called Cosmos. I understand that it had the largest membership of any university club by a large margin. From the bottom of the organisation - college representative - I carried out successive roles over the period and was eventually elected president. I then became Travel Secretary of the UNSA for the whole of the UK. I took a ground breaking party of 25 students from British Universities to East Germany, Russia, and Poland in the Summer of 1961 for a month.
I worked in my vacations and took advantage of attending every industrial course or visit organised by the Oxford University Society through the generosity of the alumni.
Towards the end of my second year I decided to try to attend an American business school to gain an MBA.
I had planned to enter UK industry in 1962 - like other undergraduates. However I was having second thoughts about that step in my second year, as I felt that the UK economy was in a mess, and that I was confronted by the possibility of joining large industrial and commercial employers and, as a result, losing my identity. I discussed this situation with my moral tutor at Keble Professor Basil Mitchell (philosophy) and lecturers at Nuffield College and with my family and I determined to go west to the USA to explore why and how businesses and unions resolved their differences as compared to the confrontation situation which prevailed in the UK.
My father at first was taken aback at the concept. I negotiated with him that I would find the money to achieve the objective: if I failed to raise the finance I would not go. I competed for and won 2 scholarships and then I won a Thouron Exchange Fellowship to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, USA which enabled me at that time to obtain arguably one of the best MBAs in the world (1962 – 64).The Thouron was the mirror image of The Harkness Fellowship.
When I had completed the MBA I had not had the opportunity to study the business/union subject although I had absorbed much of the American culture. The Fellowship benefactor encouraged me to stay on for a further semester beyond the MBA to study U.S. Industrial Management under Professor George W Taylor the leading Arbitrator in the U.S. at the time. I narrowly missed coming top of the class of 30 American graduates. Looking back I can see that by this time I had developed social aptitudes, skills of communication and an enthusiasm for business.
On leaving Wharton I joined McKinsey & Co – the management consultants – in New York City and worked with them for 3 years (1965 – 1968) in the USA. I spent one of those years working on location in Houston, Texas. I valued the opportunity to work and live in Texas and acquired an appreciation of its frontier law and culture. Here I managed to gain a private pilot’s license by learning to fly at weekends across the year. I relish flying especially in the USA – California and Oregon.
On return to the UK in 1968 I managed a succession of 4 small to medium - sized companies before creating John Gelling Associates in 1984 - an Executive Search Firm.
My company now works for some particularly complex clients: for example HRH Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall for whom I recruited a Land Steward for Cornwall (this called for sensitive searches within the land owning fraternity of the UK), The Crown Estate for whom I recruited a Chief Executive, The Church Commissioners for whom I recruited the current Chief Executive, Andrew Brown, FRICS.
I am the first member of our family either to attend university or to go into business.
Turning to our family, we have two sons who are in their early thirties; William in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office working closely with the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and Edward is a partner in a UK executive search firm in the Singapore branch.
My hobby interests are: horse riding – I have reached grade 4 (half way up the scale!) at the Association of British Riding Schools, I take part in show jumping, cross country, and dressage and have ridden in The Rockies (Montana, Wyoming and Alberta); music - I play the piano; promoting the interests of the University of Oxford by being secretary of the OUS West Kent (2000 - to date). If you are interested in joining this network, please contact me at john.gelling@jgassoc.co.uk.
