Michael Smith is a journalist and author who has worked with Initiatives of Change (IofC) and its previous incarnations since 1966. Then aged 19 he experienced a profound turning point when a friend urged him to exam his life in the light of absolute moral standards. He trained in typographic design and print production at the London College of Printing.
From 1971 to 1974 he was production manager at Himmat newsweekly in Mumbai, India, under the editorship of Rajmohan Gandhi and the late Russi Lala, and has visited India many times since then.
Returning to London, he worked as a typesetter on MRA’s regular publication New World News. He joined the editorial staff of The Industrial Pioneer.
He married Jan Bouch in 1981 and they spent a year with MRA in the USA, with their baby daughter, 1983-1984.
In 1987 he became a co-editor of For A Change magazine, published by MRA/Initiatives of Change in London. This led to Mike writing for British national newspapers including The Guardian and Guardian Weekly, The Independent, The Times, the Financial Times and The Scotsman. He has written some 50 obituaries of the pioneers of IofC for national newspapers.
Mike has taken part in the annual IofC conferences in Caux, Switzerland, including its business and economy forums, for some 50 years.
The son of a Bradford wool textile businessman, Mike has written four books on values in business and the economy. They include Beyond the bottom line (2001), Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy (2007), and Great Company (2015). The latest, Leading with Integrity (2019), is published by Routledge in the UK and the USA.
He is the author of a booklet, The Sound of Silence (2006; www.soundofsilence.org) and The Fullness of Life: reflection on the Lord’s Prayer for today’s world (2012).
He and his wife Jan live in a village near Dorking, Surrey, south of London. They have two adult children and two grandsons.
More on Michael Smith: https://michaelsmith.iofc.org
