Gerard Fairtlough (5 September 1930 – 15 December 2007) was an English author, speaker and management thinker. Born on Hayling Island,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, Fairtlough trained initially as a biochemist at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. He worked for 25 years in the

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group, where he spent the last 5 years as

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Shell Chemicals Shell Chemicals is the petrochemicals arm of Shell plc. The name "Shell Chemicals" refers to the nearly seventy companies engaged in chemicals businesses for Shell, which together make up one of the largest petrochemical producers in the world. T ...

UK. In 1980, he founded the

biopharmaceutical A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, t ...

s firm Celltech and remained its chief executive until 1990. He subsequently founded the publishing company Triarchy Press and was involved in the formation of a number of high-tech businesses. Fairtlough served as an advisor to several UK government and academic institutions. He was Specialist Advisor to the

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Select committee on Science and Technology, Chair of the Advisory Panel on

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at the

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, and a member of the UK Science and Engineering Council. Gerard Fairtlough developed and elaborated his theory of triarchy and was the author of ''The Three Ways of Getting Things Done: Hierarchy, Heterarchy & Responsible Autonomy in Organisations'', ''Creative Compartments: A Design for Future Organisation'', and co-author with Julie Allan and Barbara Heinzen of ''The Power of the Tale: Using Narratives for Organisational Success''. He also wrote extensively on the theory and practice of organization design and management and of innovation. In 1954, Fairtlough married Lisa Betambeau (they had two sons and two daughters); he died in Ryall, Dorset on 15 December 2007. He also has six grandchildren: Zoe, Tanya, Aurora, Zachery, Sorrel, Bidwell.

References

''Independent'' obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fairtlough, Gerard Alumni of the University of Cambridge English biochemists English chief executives English non-fiction writers 1930 births 2007 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English male writers 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century English businesspeople English male non-fiction writers