Members’ biographies
Lord John Browne
John Browne was born in 1948. He joined BP in 1966 as a university apprentice. He holds a degree in Physics from Cambridge University and a MS Business from Stanford University, California. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Academy of Engineering. He has numerous honorary degrees, fellowships and awards.
He joined the Board of BP in 1992 and became its Group Chief Executive in 1995 until 2007. He has been the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Apax Partners LLC (2006-7), non-executive director of Intel (1997-2006), DaimlerChrysler AG (1996-2001), Goldman Sachs (1997-2007) and SmithKline Beecham (1996-1999). He was voted Most Admired CEO by Management Today from 1999 -2002. He was knighted in 1998 and made a life peer in 2001.
He is presently a Managing Director of Riverstone Holdings LLC, a company which invests in renewable and conventional energy. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Tate, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Lead Non-Executive Director for the Government, and Chairman or member of several advisory boards.
Sir Michael Barber
Sir Michael Barber is one of the worlds leading education reformers. He is head of McKinsey’s Global Education Practice and is co-chair of the Pakistan Education Task Force. He works on major challenges of performance, organisation and reform in government and the public services, especially education, around the world. He is co-author of the widely-read international benchmarking study “How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top.”
Prior to joining McKinsey he was (from 2001) Chief Adviser on Delivery to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. As Head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit he was responsible for the oversight of implementation of the Prime Minister’s priority programmes in health, education, transport, policing, the criminal justice system and asylum/immigration.
The approach to delivery he developed is widely seen as constructive and innovative. His book about this experience – Instruction to Deliver: Fighting to Reform Britain’s Public Services (Methuen 2008) – was described by the Financial Times as “one of the best books about British Government for many years.”
Between 1997 and 2001, he was Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education on School Standards. Prior to joining government he was a Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London.
His other major publications include The Learning Game: Arguments for an Education Revolution (Indigo 1997), The Virtue of Accountability (Boston University 2005), Impossible & Necessary: Are You Ready for This (NESTA 2009) and Education Reform in Pakistan: This Time Its Going to be Different (PETF 2010).
His advice on public policy, especially education, has been sought by governments in over 30 countries including the USA, Chile, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore and Australia and by major international organisations including the OECD, The World Bank and the IMF. He is an Honorary Doctor at the Universities of Exeter, Nottingham Trent and Wolverhampton a Visiting Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and the Institute of Education in London and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.
Diane Coyle
Diane Coyle runs the consultancy Enlightenment Economics. She is a BBC Trustee and member of the Migration Advisory Committee, and was for eight years a member of the Competition Commission (until September 2009). She is also visiting professor at the University of Manchester.
She specialises in competition analysis and the economics of new technologies and globalisation, including extensive work on the impacts of mobile telephony in developing countries.
Diane is also a member of the advisory board of ING Direct UK and of the stakeholder advisory panel of EDF Energy.
She is the author of several books, including The Soulful Science (Princeton University Press 2007), Sex, Drugs and Economics (2002, Texere), Paradoxes of Prosperity (2001, Texere), Governing the World Economy (2000, Polity) and The Weightless World (1997, Capstone/MIT Press. She has also published numerous book chapters, reports and articles, and was formerly a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4′s Analysis. Her next book, The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters, will be published by Princeton University Press early in 2010.
She was previously Economics Editor of The Independent and before that worked at the Treasury and in the private sector as an economist. She has a PhD from Harvard.
Diane was awarded the OBE in January 2009.
Professor David Eastwood
Professor Eastwood became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham in April 2009. He was previously Chief Executive at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), a post he had held since September 2006. Former posts include Vice-Chancellor at the University of East Anglia, and Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Board.
Professor Eastwood held a chair in Modern History at the University of Wales, Swansea, where he was also a Head of Department, Dean, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Whilst at Swansea he co-founded the National Centre for Public Policy.
He was Fellow and Senior Tutor of Pembroke College (1988–1995) and is now an Honorary Fellow of both St Peter’s College, Oxford, from where he graduated in 1980, and Keble College, Oxford, where he was a Research Fellow from 1983 to 1987.
Professor Eastwood has served on numerous national bodies and committees, including membership of the Research Support Libraries Group 2002-03, the Roberts Review of the Research Assessment Exercise, the Tomlinson Group on 14-19 Education 2003-04, the Advisory Board of the Higher Education Policy Institute, the Councils of the John Innes Centre and the Sainsbury Laboratory, and the Board of the Quality Assurance Agency. He has chaired the 1994 Group of Universities, UUK’s Longer Term Strategy Group, and the Association of the Universities of the East of England. He also chaired the Westminster Education Commission in 2009.
Since 1991 Professor Eastwood has been a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, serving as its Literary Director 1994–2000 and as Chair of its Studies in History Board 2000–04.
He is currently Chair of Supporting Professionalism in Admissions (SPA), a Director of Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), a Board member of Universities UK (UUK) and Chair elect of Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
Professor Eastwood is married with three children. He enjoys music, politics, walking, sport and good wine; and includes writing on football amongst his extensive list of publications.
Julia King
Julia was appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in March 2007 to lead the ‘King Review’ to examine the vehicle and fuel technologies that, over the next 25 years, could help to reduce carbon emissions from road transport. The interim analytical report was published in October 2007, and the final recommendations in March 2008.
Julia’s academic work includes over 160 papers on fatigue and fracture in structural materials and developments in aerospace and marine propulsion technology. Her research has been recognised through the award of the Grunfeld, Bengough, Kelvin and John Collier medals. In 1997 she was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was made a CBE for ‘Services to Materials Engineering’ in July 1999. She is a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, an Honorary Graduate of Queen Mary, London, and an Honorary Fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and of Cardiff University.
After sixteen years as an academic researcher and university lecturer at Cambridge and Nottingham universities, Julia King joined Rolls-Royce plc in 1994. At Rolls-Royce she held a number of senior executive appointments, including Director of Advanced Engineering for the Industrial Power Group, Managing Director of the Fan Systems Business, and Engineering Director for the Marine Business. In 2002 Julia became Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics, and in 2004 she returned to academia as Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College, London. In December 2006 she became Vice-Chancellor of Aston University.
Rajay Naik
Rajay Naik is Senior Policy Adviser at The Open University – Britain’s largest university and a world leader in flexible learning. He is a UK Board Member of the Big Lottery Fund, the largest funder of charities in the UK which has allocated £3.1 billion since 2005. Rajay is also a Commissioner of the Department of Health’s Standing Commission on Carers, established by the Prime Minister in 2007 to advise on policy relating to the UK’s six million carers.
He is a renowned expert on issues relating to education and disadvantaged communities. Rajay previously led engagement initiatives within local government at a major metropolitan authority, making Coventry City Council a national beacon within four years. He formerly worked at the Office of the Third Sector within the Cabinet Office on voluntary sector policy. Prior to this he managed the national Coffeehouse Challenge programme at the Royal Society of Arts. In 2006 Rajay co-authored ‘Learner Voice’, a publication commissioned by NESTA which was met with high acclaim from the education sector.
Rajay is a former Chairman of the British Youth Council, where he served the board for five years. He is also a former Trustee of the National Youth Agency, v and the Changemakers Foundation. Rajay was a Council Member of the Learning and Skills Council, Executive Council Member at the English Secondary Students Association, and is currently serving in his fifth year as a Governor at City College, Coventry – one of the UK’s largest Further Education colleges.
Rajay is a Fellow of the RSA and Ambassador of the City of Coventry, Make Your Mark, and the Government Equalities Office. He holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from The University of Warwick.
Peter Sands
Peter Sands was appointed Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered PLC in 2006 following four years as Group Finance Director, where he had responsibilities for Finance, Strategy, Risk and Technology and Operations. Prior to this, Peter was a Director and senior partner with consultants McKinsey & Co. Peter had been with McKinsey since 1988 where he worked extensively in the banking and technology sectors in a wide range of international markets. Before joining McKinsey, Peter worked for the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
During Peter’s tenure as CEO, Standard Chartered has successfully navigated the financial crisis without any recourse to government support or reliance on central bank liquidity programs. In March 2010, Standard Chartered reported its seventh successive year of record revenues and profits. Standard Chartered is the largest foreign bank across several markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East including Korea, India and Singapore. In 2010, it became the first international company to list in India. Standard Chartered is also one of the world’s most diverse companies, with 125 nationalities represented among over 75,000 employees, nearly half of whom are women.
Peter is the Co-Chair of the India UK CEO Forum and the Chair of the Institute of International Finance’s Special Committee on Effective Regulation. Peter is also a Board member of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and a member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s International Advisory Panel and the UK’s Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance. Peter graduated from Oxford University and holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, where he was a Harkness Fellow. Peter, who grew up in Asia, is married with four children.