About Harley
Harley Lovegrove was born in South East London in 1957. His father was an architect and his mother an artist. Harley grew up in a mixed environment of culture and enterprise. He formed his first company at the age of 21 while working as a junior marketing assistant for an industrial company in London.
His career path began with teaching music, and then veered its way through recruitment, marketing, sales and eventually to becoming the owner of a photographic and marketing services business aimed at the UK’s building sector.
In 1995 Harley moved to Belgium where he earned a living importing UK building products onto the Belgian market. Twelve months later he joined a very small Belgian high technology software company (Eonic Systems) where he was taken on in the position of office manager. Working alongside the CEO, the company grew rapidly and Harley took on the responsibility of COO. Within a period of less than four years the company opened development and satellite sales offices in the US, Germany, Korea, India, Brazil, China, and the UK. Eonic Systems was sold to an American multi-national in 2001.
Since 2000, Harley has taken up numerous interim management posts working for a variety of businesses from high technology and software to petrochemical, transport, mobile telecommunications, banking and apparel.
Today Harley is the Chairman of The Bayard Partnership, a highly successful interim, project and change management human resource outsourcing business. By sticking to its founding principle that 'excellence can only be achieved by employing people that are 100% connected to what they do, both intellectually and emotionally', the partnership has enjoyed steady year on year growth since its inception seven years ago.
Apart from publishing a weekly newsletter that goes out to readers all around the world, Harley has also published two books 'Making a Difference' (which was also published in Dutch under the title 'Maak het Verschil') and 'Inspirational Leadership' (published in Dutch as 'Inspireer en Leid') . He is currently working on his third book, due to be published in the fall of 2012.
Harley is also a regular lecturer on Change Management, Project Management and Complex Problem Solving at various prestigious European business schools, including The Vlerick Business School in Gent, Belgium. Harley is currently working on a long term assignment as Global Change Manager for a major change program at Bayer MaterialScience in Leverkusen, Germany.
Harley’s hobbies include: Reading, writing, music appreciation, playing the guitar, wine tasting, and long distance motor cycle adventures across countries and continents. In June 2010 Harley completed a motorcycle trip to the Arctic Circle which took him and his companion, through Norway, across Lapland, Finland and back home through Germany. His next big trip is to Budapest and the great plains of Hungary, taking in more than 10 different countries during the months of June and July 2012.
Harley currently lives in Belgium with his wife and two cats.