I am reading through all the hundreds of tributes to Gareth and they confirm how lucky I was to have him as a lifelong friend to me and my family.   He was everything that has been said and more.  Funny, kind, clever, compassionate, generous, warm, great company.   Someone who really cared.

My family and I have enjoyed so many of those lovely sociable moments together that everyone is celebrating.  But, I have had the added bonus of working with Gareth since the mid 1980s.

We had first met as students at Kent University in 1973.  He went on to UEA in Norwich, me to Bath University.  But we reconnected on a daily basis when we worked together at LBS from the mid 1980s onwards.

Since then we have taught, consulted and written books together.   I have many, many Gareth stories from a long, shared journey that has taken us around the world.   I will tell just one here.   In fact, this is a story that, typically in a pub, Gareth would often tell himself - at his own expense!

Towards the end of 2000 we had won the prestigious McKinsey prize for the best article in Harvard Business Review that year: Why Should Anyone be Led by You? (which later became a book).   In 2001 we were invited to a big prize giving dinner in New York to formally receive the award.

Then, tragically, 9/11 intervened and the organisers asked if we were still prepared to fly.  "Of course we bloody are" said Gareth! "It's the only time we are going to win it!"   To this, the organisers replied that we both were "truly brave and noble".  A lovely comment.

But (probably after a pint or two) we began to think that "Brave and Noble" sounded like a music hall or comedy double act.   Of course, we then began to wonder which of us was Brave? And who was Noble?   Gareth could not resist conducting "market research" - again mainly in pubs.   The response was unbelievably consistent:  Gareth was Brave, I was Noble...

Many years later on the dust cover of another of our books our publishers had described us as "organisational sages".   Again, very flattering.  But, of course, we then began to ask ourselves who was Sage?.....And who was Onion?  (probably too much beer again...).   But the response to our "market research" was also utterly consistent:  I was the Sage and Gareth was the Onion!

To this day we still don't really know why...but the fact that I was the "Noble Sage" and he was a "Brave Onion" never ceased to make us, and those who heard the story, laugh.

Of course, Gareth was, in addition to all his other qualities, Brave.   And though immensely accomplished, he never took himself too seriously and could have a laugh at his own expense.

I will miss him hugely.

With love Rob (Goffee)