Robert Conway, the former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner, and the book he co-wrote,,,
In the early 1990s it seemed Robert Conway had it all. A partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Robert lived in a beautiful home in Andover, Hampshire, with his wife and four children.
But his world began to fall apart in 1994 when his wife Sue became seriously ill with ME.
“We had great private healthcare and went to see all the best doctors. But nobody could do anything for her,” remembers Robert.
“At the time I would often come home late because I was not only a workaholic but also an alcoholic. I worked hard, played hard and wanted to stay out of the way because life at home was very difficult.
“Then one night my wife asked me to take her to a Christian meeting. I told her, ‘I don’t really believe it, but I love you, so I’ll be your taxi driver.’”
That night proved life-changing for them both as Sue went forward for prayer and Robert prayed for the first time in his life.
“Sue was miraculously healed and filled with the Holy Spirit. To me that was like Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus,” says Robert.
“A friend later took us to Elim Andover Church where we just felt the love of God radiating – it was just beautiful. One evening the pastor asked if anybody there was ready to receive Jesus. I went forward and he prayed for me, and I believe that’s when I was born again.”
SERVE JESUS
Over the next decade Robert was passionate to share his Christian faith with his colleagues in the business world. But then in 2005 he gave up his successful career to launch Parable Trust, a not-for-profit company that would serve Jesus in the marketplace.
“The vision was to create a storehouse for God in the marketplace to help start and grow businesses. And it wasn’t to be like the way the world does it. It was all based on faith and generosity. So everything that we’ve done was by the way of generosity, by providing seed money, professional support and prayer to help start-up businesses and rescuing struggling businesses without creating loans or taking equity.
“Over the last 16 years we have seen God’s favour and many miracles as we’ve been able to help countless people start and grow businesses in the UK and internationally.”
Since starting with our first £10 seed offering, the Lord has multiplied our talents creating global businesses generating sales of £30 million per annum, building the storehouse to more than £8 million in net assets.
And now Robert aims to inspire many others, co-writing a book called ‘Conquering the Marketplace’ which tells the story of the Parable Trust. “Far from being a manual about the marketplace this is much more a transparent and often frank guide to the lessons we’ve learned along the way,” he says.
