Our speakers

Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP
Deputy Prime Minister

In May 2010 Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council in the coalition government. Born in Buckinghamshire in 1967, he is the third of four siblings.He studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge and continued his post-graduate education at the University of Minnesota and the College of Europe in Bruges.

After a brief spell in journalism, Nick worked on international aid programmes and trade policy at the European Commission. He was elected MEP for the East Midlands in 1999 and served as Trade and Industry spokesman for the European Liberal Democrat and Reform group until his decision to step down from the European Parliament to focus on domestic politics in 2004. He worked as a business consultant and part-time university lecturer before his election as MP for Sheffield Hallam in 2005.

In Parliament, Nick served as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Europe (2005-6), Shadow Home Secretary (2006-7) before becoming Leader in 2007.

Nick is married to Miriam González Durántez, and has three sons.

Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

Vince read Natural Science and Economics at Cambridge University, where he was President of the Union, after which he studied for a PhD at Glasgow University.

From 1990, Vince worked for Shell International and in 1995 became the company's Chief Economist. He was appointed head of the economics programme at Chatham House and since becoming an MP in 1997, was appointed a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and was a visiting research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics.

He joined the Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet in October 1999 as spokesman on Trade and Industry after a spell as a junior Treasury spokesman. Until he was appointed to the Coalition Government as Business Secretary in May 2010, he had been the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor from November 2003 and from March 2006 Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

He is married to Rachel with three children by his late wife, Olympia.

Rt Hon Justine Greening MP
Secretary of State for Transport

The Rt Hon Justine Greening, MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields is the Secretary of State for Transport.

Born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Justine attended her local comprehensive school before studying economics at Southampton University. She has an MBA from the London Business School and was a Finance Manager at Centrica plc before being elected as the Member of Parliament in May 2005.

Following her election Justine was appointed as a Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party, with responsibility for youth. As well as previously being a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, in 2007 Justine became a Shadow Treasury Minister and in January 2009 became the Shadow Minister for London.

Justine was Economic Secretary to the Treasury from May 2010 to October 2011.

Justine is also a school governor at Hotham Primary School in Putney

Mark Prisk MP
Minister of State for Business and Enterprise

Mark Prisk was appointed as minister for Business and Enterprise in May 2010, in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
Mark was elected as the Member of Parliament for Hertford and Stortford in 2001. His interests include small business and enterprise, urban planning and regeneration, as well as defence and foreign affairs. He served on the Conservative front bench from 2002, covering Treasury and Business portfolios.
Born in Cornwall and educated at Truro School and Reading University, Mark is a Chartered Surveyor by profession. He worked in the property and economic development markets, and ran his own business for ten years before entering politics.
Mark lives with his wife Lesley in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. In his spare time he enjoys watching rugby and cricket and singing with the Parliament Choir.

Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP
Minister for Employment

Chris Grayling is the Minister for Employment, he has been MP for Epsom and Ewell since 2001, and lives in the constituency with his wife Sue and their two children.

Between 2003 and 2009, Chris held a number of Shadow frontbench posts including Shadow Higher and Further Education Minister, Shadow Leader of the House, Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Shadow Home Secretary. Following the formation of the coalition government in May 2010, he was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Born in 1962, Chris grew up in Buckinghamshire. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe before going to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, to read history. After university, he joined the BBC's News Training Scheme, and worked as a producer on BBC News and Channel Four's programme Business Daily.

After a few years in television production, he decided to move to the business side of the media industry, and ran a number of small and medium-sized production businesses before moving to become a director in the Employee Communication practice at international communications firm Burson Marsteller. He ended his time there as the firm's European Marketing Director.

Chris first became active in local politics when living in Wimbledon, South London, and became both an officer in the Wimbledon Conservative Association and a Conservative councillor on the London Borough of Merton. He fought the marginal seat of Warrington South in the 1997 general election

Rt Hon Ed Balls MP
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

Ed Balls is the Labour & Co-operative MP for Morley and Outwood. Ed was previously MP for Normanton (2005-2010) and Labour's Shadow Home Secretary (2010-11), Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (2007-2010) and Economic Secretary to the Treasury (2006-2007).

In opposition (1994-1997) and then as chief economic adviser to the Treasury (1997-2004) Ed worked on policies including independence of the Bank of England, the windfall tax and New Deal jobs programme, Sure Start, tax credits and the national minimum wage.

Born in Norwich in 1967, his family moved to Nottingham when Ed was 8. Ed went on to study at Keble College, Oxford, and the John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard.

Ed has been a teaching fellow in the Department of Economics, Harvard (1989-90) and a columnist for the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman and Tribune. Ed is married to Yvette Cooper MP. They have three children - Ellie, Joe and Maddy - and live in Castleford.

Willie Walsh

Chief Executive of International Airlines Group and President of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Willie Walsh became chief executive of International Airlines Group (IAG) in January 2011, joining from British Airways where he was chief executive from October 2005.

IAG is the holding company of British Airways and Iberia. It is one of the world’s largest airline groups with more than 400 aircraft flying to 200 destinations and carrying more than 55 million passengers each year.

At British Airways, Willie guided the company to its first-ever 10 per cent operating margin in 2007 and introduced permanent changes across the airline to bring it through the worst recession in aviation history in 2008/9. He secured the airline’s long-term strategic objective to establish a transatlantic joint business with American Airlines and Iberia and set up the merger with Iberia that led to the formation of IAG.

Born in Dublin in 1961, Willie joined Aer Lingus in 1979 as a cadet pilot and worked his way through the ranks to become a captain in 1990. He began his move to management in 1989 where he fulfilled various roles in the flight operations department.  He completed a Master of Science in Management and Business Administration at Dublin’s Trinity College in 1992.

His managerial skills led him to being appointed chief executive of Futura, Aer Lingus’ Spanish charter airline in 1998.  He returned to Dublin with Aer Lingus in 2000 where he took up the role of chief operating officer and was subsequently appointed as chief executive in October 2001.

Willie was appointed President of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2010.

Willie is married with one daughter.  He enjoys all sports, especially football and golf.

Stephen Hester

Group Chief Executive, RBS Group

Stephen Hester became Chief Executive Officer of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group in November 2008 having been appointed non-executive director in October. Before joining RBS Stephen was Chief Executive of The British Land Company. He joined British Land in 2004 from Abbey National plc where he was Chief Operating Officer, having joined as Chief Financial Officer in May 2002.

For the previous 19 years he was at Credit Suisse First Boston, rising through various appointments to become Co-head of European M&A and Investment Banking, then Chief Financial Officer and then Global Head of the Fixed Income Division based in both New York and London.

In February 2008, he was appointed Non-Executive Deputy Chairman of Northern Rock Plc by the UK Treasury on its nationalisation, a position he relinquished in October 2008.

Stephen has a first class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. He is also a trustee of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Foundation.

John Timpson CBE
Chairman, Timpsons

John Timpson was born in 1943 and was educated at Oundle and Nottingham University.
After a six month Graduate Training Scheme with C & J Clark at Street, he joined the family footwear business William Timpson Limited, becoming the Director responsible for buying in 1970.

Following the acquisition of the Company by the UDS Group in 1973, he became Managing Director of leather and fur retailers, Swears & Wells Limited and in 1975 was appointed Managing Director of William Timpson his original family business.

In 1983 he led a £42m management buyout of the Company which had become part of the Hanson Trust.  In 1987 he sold the shoe shops to rival retailer George Oliver and subsequently concentrated on building up the shoe repairing and key cutting business, which he has diversified into engraving, watch repairs, dry cleaning and photo processing.

In September 1995 he acquired the 120 shop Automagic chain and in April 2003 bought Minit UK which added another 200 shoe repair shops.  In June 2008 the company acquired over 40 Sainsbury concessions, trading as Persil Services, and in December 2008 bought 187 shops branded Kick and Max Spielmann.  Timpson now has over 800 branches nationwide with a turnover of £150m and profits of over £10m.

Mr Timpson has been married to his wife Alex for 43 years and they live in Cheshire.   They have five children and have been foster carers for 29 years during which time they fostered over 80 children.

In 2004 he was awarded the CBE in the Birthday Honours List for Services to the Retail Sector.

Phil Couchman
Chief Executive Officer, UK & Ireland DHL Express

Phil Couchman is the Chief Executive Officer of DHL Express UK & Ireland, the market leader in the international express industry. Based in the UK head office in Orbital Park, Hounslow, Phil oversees the strategic development of the UK operations to strengthen and grow market share in the region.

In the UK, DHL Express manages 4,100 employees and 1,500 vehicles across 79 strategic locations.

Phil has been with DHL for over 30 years. He started in air transport with Qantas Airways in Australia in 1971. He joined DHL Middle East in 1979 and was General Manager in various countries including Saudi Arabia and the UAE over the next seven years. He moved to London in 1987 to set up DHL Aviation and the UK hub which became part of the large DHL European network of aircraft and hubs. Five years in the UK was followed by a brief Hong Kong-based Far East posting and three years as Operations Manager, Latin America. He then returned to the Middle East to lead as Regional Director for over 10 years. In early 2007 Phil moved to South Africa where he was responsible for seeing the business through double-digit shipment & revenue growth in 2007 and 2008.

Phil’s extensive experience of the industry and the UK & Ireland operations perfectly positions him to develop the UK & Ireland business. Phil’s focus and passion is on delivering first class customer service.

Robert Litan
Vice President for Research and Policy and Chief Economist, The Kauffman Foundation

Robert E. Litan is the Vice President for Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. At Kauffman, Dr. Litan oversees a multi-million budget for academic research relating to entrepreneurship and writes extensively about topics related to entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth (including the legal environment conductive to all of these). At Brookings, Litan pursues a wide-ranging research agenda, which includes topics in regulation, financial institutions, telecommunications, and general economic policy.

Dr. Litan has won two awards for his research. In 2011, he was awarded the inaugural Massey Prize for excellence in research on capital markets and innovation by the University of Texas Law School. In 2001, Stanford awarded him its Zale Prize for excellence in public policy research.

During his career, Dr. Litan has authored or co-authored over 25 books, edited another 14, and authored or co-authored over 200 articles in journals, magazines and newspapers on a broad range of public policy issues. His latest book is Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, Economic Growth and Prosperity (with William Baumol and Carl Schramm, Yale University Press, 2007), which will be followed in the fall of 2012 by Better Capitalism (co-authored with Carl Schramm), will be published by Yale University Press in the fall of 2012.

Neil Clifford
CEO, Kurt Geiger

Neil Clifford has a wealth of retail experience having worked for The Burton Group and Bally prior to becoming CEO of Kurt Geiger. Clifford joined Kurt Geiger in 1995 as Sales and Marketing Director. He subsequently covered a number of senior positions within the business from Buying Director to Managing Director. During 2002, Clifford left Kurt Geiger and joined Bally as President of Global Sales returning to Kurt Geiger in September 2003 as CEO. In 2005, Clifford led the management buy-out from the Harrods Group and subsequently led the secondary buy-out in partnership with Graphite Capital in 2008. In 2011 Clifford led the acquisition of Kurt Geiger by The Jones Group inc.

Sonia Wolsey Cooper
Membership & People Director, AXA PPP healthcare

Sonia joined AXA in 2002 as customer service director for AXA PPP healthcare - UK healthcare arm of the global AXA group. She moved to AXA UK as HR director in 2006, returning to the healthcare business as corporate responsibility director in 2010 and taking up her current role as membership & people director in June 2011. Before joining AXA Sonia, a graduate in managerial and administrative studies from Aston University, spent eight years at Lloyds TSB – latterly as head of direct insurance, culminating as executive assistant to the group chief executive. Prior to this, she worked at Citibank Corporation from 1988.

Graham Sutherland
MD, BT Business

Graham Sutherland became Managing Director of BT Business in September 2011 and is responsible for around 1 million small, medium and enterprise business customers in the UK. Graham joined the communications and IT services company in 2006 as Chief Financial Officer of BT Ireland before becoming the Chief Executive Officer of BT in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Prior to joining BT, Graham was Managing Director of NTL Communications in the Republic of Ireland and a member of NTL's group operating board for the UK and Ireland. Graham's previously worked in the Aerospace sector as Finance Director for Bombardier Business Jet Solutions in Dallas, Texas and also Managing Director of Maydown Precision Engineering. Graham has also been a board member of Business in the Community in Northern Ireland. He holds a BA in Accountancy & Finance from Heriot-Watt University and is also an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Kathryn James
Managing Director of the National Exhibition Centre

In her role at the NEC, Kathryn is responsible for the strategic direction of the venue - increasing revenue and profitability through the identification of market opportunities, developing existing business and building strong relationships within the industry and with key stakeholders.

In addition, Kathryn is part of the team driving the master plan project at the NEC entitled "Destination NEC", a concept that is seeking to create a true destination at the NEC, broadening the offer for visitors and making the experience of visiting the site even more compelling and engaging. This project will seek to increase the existing economic value already created by the NEC of £2bn and 29,000 jobs in the region.

Prior to joining the NEC, Kathryn – a Chartered Accountant – was Managing Director at London Luton Airport. She first joined London Luton's parent company TBI, one of the world's largest airport operating companies, in 1996 from Price Waterhouse. She moved from being an Acquisition Accountant in 1996 to Managing Director of London Luton - the fifth largest UK airport - in just nine years, where she has been responsible for an operation handling nearly 10 million passengers every year. Her career with TBI took her to many parts of the world to run airports.

For her outstanding achievements to the region during her time at London Luton Airport, Kathryn was awarded a Doctorate from Bedfordshire University.

Bob Betts
Managing Director of Smith of Derby Limited

Bob Betts is the Managing Director of Smith of Derby Limited, responsible for maintaining the company’s leadership on the world time map.

As part of Bob’s commitment to the continuing development of his home City of Derby, Bob is also Chairman of the Cultural Board for Derby City Council. This is the team challenged with ensuring the City provides world class art, sports and leisure facilities throughout the community.

Bob is also the Chairman of Marketing Derby, a public/private enterprise, working to attract investment and employment in the City. Bob also sits on the Board of QUAD, the City’s newly built arts and gallery facility and is a member of the Court of The University of Derby.

Bob took up the role at Smith of Derby in 2007, returning to his home town of Derby following 19 years with the IBM Corporation, based mainly in London and Europe.

Before his management career, Bob sailed the world as an Officer in the Merchant Navy with Blue Star Ship Management Ltd.    He is married with 3 boys.

Saira Khan
Entrepreneur

Saira Khan shot to fame in the first series of the BBC 2 TV series “The Apprentice”. She is a regular face on BBC television and is currently presenting the hit CBBC show Trading your way to the USA. In 2006 Saira set up her own company Miamoo - a luxury range of skincare products, has written a self help book called PUSH for success and is an experienced motivational speaker. Saira has worked for Burton’s Biscuits, McVities and KP, Workthing.com and Yell. Saira hold a degree from Brighton Polytechnic and a Masters degree in Environmental planning from Nottingham University.

Saira is a keen supporter of 'Young Chamber' which engages local businesses, via the Chambers of Commerce and other business networks, to work with and support young people in education so that they gain a greater understanding of the world of work, and the skills and attitudes that employers look for from their future employees.