Charles Handy obituary

Philosopher and management thinker who coined the phrase portfolio' career, and believed companies should retain their humanity

For a country that prides itself on its professional and financial services sector, the UK has produced remarkably few world-ranking management and organisational thinkers. At the very top of that pile, however, is Charles Handy, the writer and social philosopher - his preferred designation - who has died aged 92.

As both a thinker and educator, Handy was unusual. Although a professor - he was a founding faculty member of the London Business School (LBS), the UK's first graduate business school, in the 1960s - he never followed the conventional path, ploughing a narrow furrow and publishing in specialist journals.