Generosity Path's Entrepreneur Profile: Andy Corley (UK)
We are excited to share with you some of the great Entrepreneur Profiles from around the world, compiled by our friends at Generosity Path. Below, we meet a top business leader in England who is on the generosity path and ask them what God has taught him about giving.
This week, meet Andy Corley from the United Kingdom!
THREE LESSONS ON GIVING FROM ANDY CORLEY
1. Delight in Your Calling as a Kingdom Entrepreneur.
“I became an exploration geologist and rose through the company for the next 20-odd years and had some success,” Andy says. “I got to board levels of some very big companies, but then in my 40th year, I was canned and spent two years out of work.” Time away allowed Andy to listen to God. “I came to the conclusion I might be better positioned to use business to serve and to bless when I owned my own business. You’re freer to indulge the things God has called you to do.” Marketplace leaders are a key part of Andy’s calling now. “Marketplace leaders feel misunderstood and undervalued,” Andy says. “I exist, in part, to serve that.”
2. We Supply Availability; God Supplies Multiplication.
In the midst of unemployment, Andy joined a generosity event. “That was highly ironic,” he recounts, “because our money was fast disappearing.” Andy heard large givers share and got excited to grow a large company to give more. “I was very focused on size when I had a revelatory moment; the Lord made it clear to me,” Andy says. “I was speaking to [givers] on a completely different level to our own business. I felt a bit of a fraud. My story was authentic, but they were dealing with billions and I was dealing with millions.” Then the Lord intervened. “I felt the Lord say to me that both are just five loaves and two fishes in the hands of the king,” Andy says. “My calling was not to create squillions of dollars, but to unblock pipelines and my gifts of time and talent are equally important. It’s about having a generous heart.”
3. Be Generous with Your Relationships.
Andy’s companies historically have given away significant portions of profit, but Andy’s enjoyed exploring non-financial generosity as well, particularly being generous to connect people with one another. “I love being generous with my address book and contacts.” When asked how he does this, Andy says, “It primarily starts with taking a real interest in the individual and creating relationship that is genuinely interested in what it is that they are doing and how God is leading them. Out of that, you can see their gifting and their calling. I do it without any agenda and without any control.”
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