Tim Cullen
Senior Associate
Tim Cullen
Senior Associate
Tim Cullen MBE is an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and was, until recently, Director of the Oxford Programme on Negotiation, which he created in 2004 and in which he still teaches a substantial portion. He is also currently a Professor of Management Practice at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. Until recently, he also taught the negotiation module of Stockholm Business School’s EMBA programme and has taught negotiation programmes in more than 20 countries. He also teaches modules on business ethics/compliance and risk and reputational management.
In addition to teaching negotiation to governments, multilateral organisations (including the UN, WTO, IMF and ADB), and to corporations, for 25 years, Tim headed TCA Ltd, a consultancy that he recently sold. Tim and his TCA colleagues developed a strong track record in fostering dialogue among opposing parties in the water sectors of countries throughout Asia when the company managed the Asian Development Bank’s Water Awareness Programme. Tim and his colleagues also played a key advisory role for two international commissions: The World Commission on Dams and the Commission on Growth and Development.
The son of a British diplomat, Tim lived in the UK, Sweden, and Washington while attending boarding school in the Isle of Man. His early career spanned both private and public sectors, working for Ford Motor Company and Continental Bank over the decade from 1969 to 1978, before joining the World Bank. He served as the Bank’s Chief of External Relations in Europe, based in Paris, from 1984 to 1990, before being named Chief Spokesman at the Bank’s headquarters in Washington, a post he held until 1996, when he became Senior Advisor for External and UN affairs. Following the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, he played a significant role for the World Bank in the reconstruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1997, he took on a special assignment as the Bank’s representative in Hong Kong for three months during the Handover to China.
From 2001 to 2015, he was a Commissioner on the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) of the Isle of Man and was Chairman of the Risk and Internal Control Committee. In 2009, he became the first Executive Director of the Small Countries Financial Management Centre, which he created with the support of the Isle of Man government, the World Bank, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the June 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours for ‘services to international financial management’ in recognition of his extensive pro bono work on this capacity-building initiative.
In other voluntary work, he founded and chairs the charity, The Isle of Man – St Vincent and the Grenadines Education Programme (ISEP) and is also currently a trustee of King William’s College and was, until recently, chairman of the Derbyhaven Residents’ Society. He formerly served as a trustee of the Institute of Business Ethics, as chairman of the business council of Worldaware, and as president of the International School of Paris.
In addition to writing numerous teaching cases and role-play simulations, Tim has written many published articles on subjects ranging from economic development issues to anti-money laundering. He was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme, The Bottom Line, in June 2016, on “How to Negotiate” and again, in January 2017, on “Trade Negotiations and Brexit”. Articles he wrote on the negotiation challenges of Brexit were published in Foreign Affairs, the Daily Telegraph, and Prospect magazine. He has been interviewed many times by international media and has been a commentator on Shenzhen TV in China. He is also the author of Yugoslavia and the World Bank (1979). In 2014 he delivered a TEDx talk on the challenges facing very small countries.
Tim has an MA from Trinity College, University of Dublin (where he was Editor of Trinity News), and has completed negotiation courses at Harvard Kennedy School and the Programme on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
