TJ Taylor has been training professionals in English since 2003, but in reality our story starts a few months before.
There’s a proverb in English that says ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, which means that every misfortune contains something positive, that there’s always some reason to be optimistic.
And that is the perfect metaphor for the origins of TJ Taylor.
In 2002 Alex Taylor was working as a Business English trainer in Milan for the corporate division of a large multinational education company, which had 150 English schools throughout Europe. The schools had good teachers, enthusiastic students and a great learning atmosphere.
However, that summer there were signs of trouble at the headquarters in Spain, and a lot of unease as we reached the end of the year, when the schools closed for Christmas.
Those 150 schools didn’t open again in January. Thousands of teachers were unpaid for months and out of a job after Christmas, and tens of thousands of individuals and corporate clients were deeply unhappy, out of pocket, and with no course. It was an incredibly difficult period, and many teachers emigrated or had to return home.
But in Milan some of those teachers and corporate clients came together, uniting around Alex Taylor, who was only 24 at the time, as their team leader and organiser.
In the following months this group of teachers and clients became a company, set out their 3 core principles, and voted on a name (which emerged by accident, but that’s another story…).
Some of those original clients are still with us today, 20 years later. Over the years we have helped thousands of people with their English, published glossaries and guidebooks, and helped introduce modern techniques for corporate language training into Italy.
TJ Taylor was born of adversity and difficult times, but the company has prospered because of this – experiential learning at its toughest!