The story of EMCC
Back in 1989, when professional coaching and mentoring in Europe was a new business practice, a group of like-minded practitioners came to the view that there needed to be a common code of practice and shared ethical base for coaches and mentors.
This group included people who are now regarded as the pioneers and original thinkers of the profession, many of whose books have become essential reading. Among them were David Megginson, David Clutterbuck, Eric Parsloe, Sir John Whitmore, Myles Downey and Peter Bluckert.
Their common bond was that not only were they themselves practitioners, they were also involved in training coaches and mentors. They wanted their students to recognise and work to a shared ethical standard not only to guide their practice, but to enable people who employed them to be able to rely on this as a mark of quality. They established the EMCC, created our highly regarded Code of Ethics, and developed the European Quality Award which is granted to training organisations that meet stringent quality standards.
In the original group there were practitioners and trainers from several countries across Europe. Over the years EMCC has gained members in more than 26 different countries. There are now over 10,000 members worldwide.
EMCC UK was set up in 2004 and was fortunate to include in its leading members three of the original founders, who in 2008 were each honoured with the title Honorary Vice President. Today in EMCC UK, we continuously develop our thinking around ethics and standards and encourage our members and other practitioners to both test and develop their expertise through the European Individual Accreditation (EIA) for practising coaches and mentors.
To enable our own organisation to develop, in 2009 we created an Executive Board, supported by an Advisory Council.