After three years at University College, Oxford reading English Language and Literature, Richard Hilliard spent the next three years as a schoolmaster and tutor. At 24 he joined the world of shipping insurance as a graduate trainee and over the next three decades worked all over the world and held directorships at a number of firms. Eventually Richard founded his own business, which he left in 2013.

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In 2014 he satisfied a long-held ambition by graduating as an Executive Coach. Now Richard coachs leadership and team-building skills at the London Business School and to his private clients. His motto is: “With the right mixture of people, anything is possible”.

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Richard lives in the Wiltshire countryside and has the Travellers Club as his London base. He is am married to Melinda, who lectures on Garden History (The Lost Royal Gardens of Carlton House) and has two grown-up daughters and, so far, one granddaughter. In 2018 he published “a collection (mostly) of other people’s words” entitled Plenty of Grapes which he regularly updates and presents to audiences. Richard is learning to speak Persian. He enjoys a drink and the company of others and is insatiably curious about human behaviour and the stories behind the words we use in speech and writing.