Julia Middleton
Julia Mary Middleton (' Morland; 21 April 1958) is the founder and Innovation Officer of Common Purpose, an international charity that runs leadership development programmes across the world. The charity's aims are to "develop leaders who can cross boundaries, both at work and in society." She is a campaigner for the progression of diverse leaders in civil society. Early life and education. Born in Lambeth, Middleton is the daughter of Agnes () and Eric Morland. Middleton was educated at a French lycée before gaining an Economics degree at the London School of Economics. Career. In 1980, she began her  career at the Industrial Society, where she created Head Start, a programme providing high school dropouts with training and advice from prospective employers. In the autumn of 1988, Middleton formed Common Purpose. Common Purpose runs a range of leadership development courses around the world that develop leaders who can cross boundaries, building their capabilities to solve complex problems both in organisations and in cities. Since 1989, more than 85,000 people have taken part in Common Purpose programmes. Non-executive roles. Alongside her role as Innovation Officer for Common Purpose, Middleton occupies a number of non-executive roles. She is a  member of the Board of Trustees for Alfanar, a venture philanthropy fund set up by Tarek Ben Halim to assist organisations in the Arab region; is on the International Advisory Council for Fundação Dom Cabral (a non-profit business institution in Brazil) and is a Goodwill Ambassador of the Aurora Forum (a global humanitarian initiative, run out of Armenia). She was involved in the founding of the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity that runs Journalisted, a free online journalist portfolio designed to improve public accountability in journalism, and also helped in the founding of DEMOS, a UK-based think  tank, and Impetus Trust, which develops venture philanthropy in the UK. Literature. In 1982, Middleton authored a book called "Quality Circles", published by the Industrial Society in London. She also wrote the foreword to the book "How to be an even better chair: Sensible Advice from the Public & Charity Sectors", written by Sophie Petit-Zeman. In February 2007, Middleton's book "Beyond Authority: Leadership in a Changing World" was published by Palgrave Macmillan, and she recorded a meet-the-author video. In 2010, it was translated into Hungarian and published by HVG Konyvek. In 2014, Middleton wrote "Cultural Intelligence: CQ : The Competitive Edge for Leaders Crossing Borders" published by Bloomsbury and she recorded a video on why she wrote it. In late 2014, a paperback version was published for the Indian market. Personal life. Julia Middleton married Rupert Middleton in 1984; they have two sons and three daughters.