Philip John Sadler was born in London in 1930, the only child of working-class parents Ted and Ada. He studied hard, earning a place at Enfield Grammar, and did his National Service in Hong Kong, then studied sociology at the London School of Economics.
After graduating from LSE with first-class honours, Philip spent a short spell in advertising before joining the Ministry of Defence as a social scientist. There he spent ten years working with the Royal Air Force on a range of human factor issues such as leadership, organisation structure and morale.
Following a brief marriage to Jeanine, with whom he shared a daughter, Alison, Philip married Terry and had two sons, Mathew and Jonathan, who were brought up in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, where they both still live, just down the road from their mother.
In 1964, he become the Foundation Director of Research at Ashridge Management College, where under his leadership the research team grew to be one of the largest management research groups in the UK. In 1969 Philip was appointed as Principal of the College. In this role he had three major responsibilities - the provision of management education programmes, management research and the custody of an historic building and estate.
Philip led the development of Ashridge as a major international centre for management education and in achieving triple accreditation (AMBA, EQUIS, AACSB) for its series of post graduate programmes. He later became the Chief Executive of the Ashridge Trust and on his retirement became a Vice-President of the Ashridge Trust, a non-executive director of several companies and played an active role as senior research fellow in the think tank Tomorrow’s Company. He also served as the Chair of the Association for Management Education and Development, as a Vice-President of the Strategic Planning Society and played an active role in the development of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) where he also became a Vice-President.
Philip Sadler has an impressive list of publications. He was the author of many books in the fields of management and organisation behaviour and made contributions to The Times and Financial Times. His expertise was recognized by several awards which including a CBE, the honorary degrees of DSc and DBA and the gold medal of the British Institute of Management.
Philip passed away on Monday 17 June 2024 at Watford General Hospital after suffering from a range of infections and his funeral took place at the Chilterns Crematorium on Friday 12 July.