Giles Watkins
After graduating in Economics from the University of Bristol, Giles spent over 20 years with Shell, initially in B2B Sales and Marketing, Oil Trading and increasingly senior leadership roles in Ho Chi Minh City, Paris, London, Beijing and Papua New Guinea. Giles left Shell in 2008 to broaden his career and subsequently worked with McKinsey & Co in Jakarta and Coats PLC in Sri Lanka and London.
In Giles’ leadership roles he oversaw teams as large as 600 with revenues up to $200M across multiple locations, consistently delivering profitable sales growth. He also successfully led teams involved in start-ups, acquisitions and divestments. Reflecting on his career Giles sees that it was the coaching situations that he most enjoyed. Helping others to achieve their goals has always motivated him more than doing the deal himself. Giles wishes he’d known about Vistage earlier.
Away from work, Giles loves nothing better than watching his son play cricket. He also runs and plays tennis for fun. He regularly attends theatre productions, volunteers to run a homeless shelter in the winter and is an active supporter of the charity ‘Cricket Without Boundaries’.
Giles has a Masters in Coaching and Consulting for Change from INSEAD. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing plus a Fellow of the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management. Giles has also always been a strong believer in work life balance and made a study about sleep as part of his INSEAD thesis.