Prof Mike Ferguson

Mike originally qualified as a Chartered Electrical Engineer and then held senior management positions in manufacturing and telecommunications before setting up his own contracting company in the early 1980s.

For most of his career, however, Mike has been leading research into the development of great human performance - primarily in the fields of leadership, management and working effectively with others. His special interests include the development of higher self-efficacy and the profound evolution in cognitive and self-image psychology that has occurred during the last few decades. He supervised an extensive study of the characteristics of ‘successful people’ and how these particular qualities can be developed at will. He is credited as a pioneer in using the outdoors as a learning environment to support action-learning, team and leadership development. He continues to deliver seminars and supervise research projects at various University Business Schools, both in the UK and overseas.

Mike is consulted widely by organisations seeking cultural change and improved use of their human resources, as a Facilitator in bringing groups together to work with new challenges, and as a Coach for their senior staff. His skills as a Mediator are regularly sought when people stop getting along well together. He is known around the world as ‘the Success Speaker’.

Significant past projects include the development and implementation of the performance appraisal system for GMC-registered medical doctors across the UK, and the selection process for the London 2012 Olympics Gamesmakers. He has regularly co-presented The Confident Leader programmes for the NHS.

Mike likes to make work fun and is a lively presenter, having trained with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He is regularly described around the world as “an inspiring speaker”. He holds a Masters degree in Management, is a graduate of the Pacific Institute in Seattle and is a Master Practitioner and Coach in Neuro-linguistic Programming. He is also a Registered Hypnotherapist.

An active Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Mike has held various executive and NED roles during his career, and is currently Chair of the Board of the Vine Schools Trust – a family of 23 primary schools employing 600 staff and supporting almost 5,000 children across Essex.

He is a keen motorcyclist, an enthusiastic -- if unaccomplished! -- musician, and lives with his wife and two teenage sons in their self-built house in the southeast of England.