Giles has a wide breadth of business experience both here and overseas. Having visited over 70 countries on business and lived in 7, he has built upon his sales, marketing and oil trading functional expertise to spend the last 15 years in CEO and consulting roles in a variety of sectors including energy, construction and textiles.

Giles has led a start-up to profitability, made a successful acquisition and led a US$200m turnover company through divestment. And since leaving his last corporate role in 2015 Giles has consulted to SMEs as well as running a peer group advisory board for CEOs of small & medium sized businesses.

For over two decades, Giles worked for Shell International. In addition to assignments in the UK he held increasingly responsible leadership roles in Vietnam, France & China plus Papua New Guinea & the Solomon Islands before leaving Shell in 2008.

Giles then spent two years in Indonesia with McKinsey & Co as an advisor to the petroleum sector and led the internal leadership academy for the Top 50 in a State-Owned Enterprise. He was also Regional Vice President (South East Asia) for Fosroc International, a specialty chemicals company operating primarily in construction. Giles then lead businesses focused on the textile sector for 5 years for Coats PLC, first in manufacturing & marketing in Sri Lanka, then a start up in global industrial services based in London.

Giles holds an honours degree in economics from the University of Bristol plus a postgraduate diploma in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).  In 2013 he returned to his studies whilst being a CEO. Giles gained a Masters’ degree in Coaching and Consulting for Change from INSEAD Singapore. This included studying a thesis on Sleep and the Executive. Giles’ book ‘Positive Sleep: a holistic approach to resolve sleep issues and transform your life’ was published in September 2019 (LID).

Away from work, Giles is a keen cricket fan, both watching his 14-year-old and playing for the Elephants, a veteran’s team, as well as being an MCC member. Giles works with Cricket Without Boundaries, a charity that uses cricket to deliver HIV/AIDs awareness messages in sub-Saharan Africa. He also plays both lawn and real tennis. He is a member of Chatham House, and chairs a lecture series, which combines facilitating great conversations about key topics of the day with fundraising for local working with youth at risk and the homeless.