Remembering our founder, partner, and friend Graham Alexander

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our founder Graham Alexander, who passed away peacefully on the 15 January 2024 surrounded by his family.

Graham leaves behind a profound professional legacy in the shape of The Alexander Partnership which he founded 36 years ago in his pioneering approach to executive coaching; an approach which took the ideas of Timothy Gallwey’s Inner Game of sports coaching into the executive world. He later developed his coaching methodology alongside Sir John Whitmore into the GROW coaching model – considered to be the world’s best known coaching framework.

At that time, very few people in the UK and Europe were focusing on coaching at the board level of business. Graham took this opportunity to establish himself and The Alexander Partnership as a centre of executive coaching excellence, helping to build inspirational leaders for many of the world’s most successful and ambitious organisations.

Often referred to as a ‘super coach’, Graham coached many of the UK’s top CEOs. He was the author of Tales from the Top, a wonderful real-life dive into his executive coaching experiences and lessons learned. He also co-wrote Supercoaching, now one of the most instructive books on the art of coaching.

It is not just a huge professional legacy that Graham leaves behind, but a personal legacy of a man of great humility. Despite his ground-breaking contribution to executive coaching, he never took life too seriously.

Graham will be dearly missed by all of us here at The Alexander Partnership where he was an ever-present source of great inspiration and guidance to new and established partners alike.  He embodied personal warmth and humanity and was always positive in his approach to coaching and to life itself.

Shortly before he died, Graham shared some words to the people he valued and were most important to him: “Strive to be happy in life and strive to help others be happy.” We can think of no better way to honour his work and the person he was by living our personal and professional lives in that spirit.

Graham was a superbly talented coach and wonderful friend. It has been our privilege to share the coaching journey with him and his legacy will continue to inspire and guide The Alexander Partnership into the future.