01
Hello, I'm...
My name is Simon Pillar. I am a principal in a private equity firm and live outside of Oxford, England with my wife Rebecca and four children. In my mid-thirties, I was working in management consulting and simultaneously found myself growing in my Christian faith more and more. I questioned if I should leave business to pursue a role in church ministry. I set aside a nine month period for prayer and seeking counsel from godly men who knew me well. At the end of that time, their advice was unanimous: “Stay in business for the glory of God." They told me it was probably the harder path and I would need a strategy to make sure I didn't succeed financially but fail spiritually. That was very loving advice and it set me on a journey to discover how business people throughout history have been involved in God’s plans. After doing some historical research, my friend Col Marshall and I coined the term for the strategy: “Gospel Patronage”. A little while later I met John and Renée Rinehart and the rest is history.