Who's Who

Sir David Bell became a Director of Pearson in March 1996. He is Chairman of the Financial Times Group, having been Chief Executive of the Financial Times since 1993. In July 1998 he was appointed Pearson's Director for People with responsibility for the recruitment, motivation, development and reward of employees across the Pearson Group.

In addition to this, he is a Non-Executive Director of The Economist, the Vitec Group plc and The Windmill Partnership, Chairman of Common Purpose International, Chairman of Crisis, Chairman of Sadler's Wells, Chairman of the International Youth Foundation, a Patron of the Ambache Chamber Orchestra, a trustee of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) and a member of the Honorary Council of the Royal National Theatre. David was also Chairman of the Millennium Bridge Trust (1995-2002), responsible for conceiving the first new bridge across Thames in the centre of London for 100 years.

David was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Pennsylvania, is married with three children and lives in Islington.

David received his knighthood for services to industry, the arts and charity.

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Julia Middleton is the Founder and Chief Executive of Common Purpose. She is a passionate campaigner for more - and more diverse - leaders who are active in civil society.

In the autumn of 1988, Julia formed Common Purpose. Common Purpose now operates in every area of the UK. The organisation aims to improve the way society works by increasing the number of informed individuals who are actively involved in shaping the future of the area in which they live and work. By bringing leaders from diverse backgrounds together, Common Purpose creates new networks for current and future senior decision-makers.

Her first book Beyond Authority: Leadership in a Changing World was published in February 2007. The book, How to be Better Chair by Sophie Petit-Zeman was also written in association with Julia and Common Purpose.

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Cyril Chantler is Chairman of the Board of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust and of the King's Fund, London. He is Chairman of the Beit Memorial Fellowships Board and of the Clinical Advisory Committee for NHS London. He is a trustee of the Dunhill Medical Trust, a member of the Council of Southwark Cathedral and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He is an adviser to the Associate Parliamentary Health Group. He is a non-executive director of a fostering agency, By the Bridge, and a member of the public sector advisory panel of Doctors.net.uk.

Cyril Chantler was Dean of the Guy’s, King’s College and St Thomas’ Hospitals’ Medical and Dental School, where he was the Children Nationwide Medical Research Fund Professor of Paediatric Nephrology until his retirement in 2000. He was an Honorary Consultant to Guy’s Hospital (1972 – 2000). Previously, he was Principal of the United Medical and Dental School of Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals (1992 – 1998) and General Manager of Guy’s Hospital (1985-88).

In addition, he served as a member of the Member of the NHS Policy Board (1989-1996), President of the British Association of Medical Managers (1991-1997), and as Chairman of the Council of Heads of UK Medical Schools and Faculties (1998 – 1999). He was also a Member of the General Medical Council (1994 – 2003), where he was Chairman of the Standards Committee. Recently he was Chairman of the Shared Medical Record Committee of NHS Connecting for Health.

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Geraint Talfan Davies is the Chairman of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, an independent think-tank, which acts as a bridge between public policy makers, the academic community, business and non-profit organisations. He is a former Controller of BBC Wales and was the Chairman of Arts Council Wales 2003-6. He is also Chairman of Welsh National Opera and a non-executive director of Glas Cymru Cyf (Welsh Water).

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Will Davies is a graduate student at Goldsmiths College, London. He is a former senior research fellow at the ippr where he specialised in media and technology policy, and is currently a Fellow of The Young Foundation, and an Associate Editor of Renewal (the journal for social democracy). He has written for a variety of publications including The Guardian, Prospect, The New Statesman and The Times.

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Amelia Chilcott Fawcett was a vice chairman and chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley's European operations, based in London, before setting up a new company. Pensions First plans to use complex financial structures to reduce risk in pension schemes, and help them to meet their liabilities accurately.

Before joining Morgan Stanley, Amelia worked for the US law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, first in New York then Paris. She joined Morgan Stanley in London in 1987, was appointed vice president in 1990, an executive director in 1992 and managing director and chief administrative officer for European operations in 1996. In 2002 she was appointed vice chairman. She was a member of the European Executive Committee, the Institutional Securities Operating Committee and the boards of directors of the firm's major European operating companies.

Amelia is a member of the Court of the Bank of England, a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery (and chairman of the gallery's development board), a member of the Council of the University of London, chairman of the London International Festival of Theatre and trustee of the National Maritime Museum (Cornwall). She became a CBE in the 2002 New Year's Honours List for services to the finance industry and won the Prince of Wales's Ambassador Award last year. In 2007, she became a non-executive director on the board of the Guardian Media Group.

Amelia, a British and American citizen, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1956. She has a degree in history from Wellesley and a law degree from the University of Virginia. She was admitted to the New York bar in 1984. Her interests include fly fishing, sailing, hill-walking and history. She completed a transatlantic sailing voyage for Breakthrough Breast Cancer in 2006.

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Roger Graef is a writer, filmmaker, broadcaster and criminologist. Born in New York, he is now a dual national. He has directed plays, TV drama, and opera. His more than one hundred and twenty films as director or producer cover arts, current affairs, social issues, and comedies, including The Secret Policeman’s Ball (with John Cleese) and the first Comic Relief (with Richard Curtis). Roger was the first documentary filmmaker to be honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship last year, the Academy’s lifetime achievement award. His company, Films of Record, celebrated its 25th year in 2004. Roger was awarded an OBE in 2006 for his services to broadcasting.

He developed the ‘fly on the wall’ technique in Britain that gained him the first access to film in normally closed situations from ministries and boardrooms to police, prisons, probation and social work. His influential films include Thames Valley Police, which helped change the way the police deal with rape victims. In Search of Law and Order took a unique look at some groundbreaking ways of changing juvenile rehabilitation. And The Secret Policeman's Ball helped make Miramax and Harvey Weinstein household names, and influenced a generation of comedians and musicians to try and change the World.

Roger was a founding director of Channel 4, a board director of London Transport and co-designer of the London bus map. He was a governor of the British Film Institute, and served on the board of the ICA where he created and chaired the ICA Architectural Forum.

As an author, he has written Talking Blues: the police in their own words, Living Dangerously: young offenders in their own words, and Why Restorative Justice? He lectures, writes and broadcasts frequently on crime justice and other social issues.

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Helena Kennedy's practice of law as a barrister has involved a large number of prominent cases. These include the Brighton Bombing, the Michael Bettany espionage trial, the Guildford Four appeal and the bombing of the Israeli embassy. She has also acted for many battered women who have killed their husbands. She was the British member of the recent International Bar Association Task Force on Terrorism, and chaired an inquiry for the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health into sudden infant death. As a life peer, she also participates in the House of Lords on issues concerned with human rights, civil liberties, social justice and culture.

From 1992 to 1997, she was chair of Charter 88, the constitutional reform group, which persuaded the new Labour government to make devolution and human rights legislation central planks of their manifesto. She is also on the board of the Independent newspaper. From 1994 to 2002, she was chair of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). She was also, between 1998 and 2004, chair of the British Council, and was chair of the Human Genetics Commission from 1999 until 2007, which advises the UK government on the ethical, social and legal issues arising from developments in genetic science.

She was a commissioner on the Hamlyn National Commission on Education from 1991 to 1993. Her 1997 report Learning Works, for the Further Education Funding Council, is recognised as a seminal work, and a foundation to help disadvantaged students into higher education has been established in her name: The Helena Kennedy Foundation. In 1993, Kennedy became the first chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, a post from which she stepped down in 2001. She is now president of the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, and chair of Arts and Business. She is currently chairing an inquiry into risk management for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and is acting in the current wave of terrorism trials.

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Sir Philip Otton retired as a Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2001. He was appointed a High Court Judge (Queen’s Bench Division) in 1983, to the Court of Appeal in 1985 and to the Court of Appeal in Gibraltar in 2004. He continues to sit in the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal (on occasions). He was President of the Society of Construction Law, President of the Personal Injury Bar Association and is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Judicial Administration Birmingham University.

At the Bar he was Junior Counsel to the Treasury (Personal Injuries) 1970-75 and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1975. He appeared as Counsel and acted as Arbitrator in commercial and construction disputes.

He is a Chartered Arbitrator, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and an Accredited Mediator by the Institute. He is an Appointed Arbitrator to the NASD, a Member of the American Law Institute, of the American Bar Association and has served on the Faculty of NITA.

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Robert Peston became BBC Business Editor in February 2006. Previously he was the Associate Editor of The Sunday Telegraph. From April 2002 to October 2005 he was City Editor and Assistant Editor of The Sunday Telegraph, in charge of its business and money sections. Prior to that (2000 to 2002) he was Editorial Director of Quest, an online service for investors. During this period, he was also a weekly columnist for the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and New Statesman and a monthly commentator for Management Today. In 2001, he was a contributing editor to the Spectator magazine.

Until September 2000, Robert was the Financial Times' Financial Editor - in charge of all business and financial coverage - and a member of the FT's editorial board as an assistant editor. At the FT, which he joined in 1991, his previous positions were Political Editor, Banking Editor and head of an investigations unit (which he founded). Before joining the FT in 1991 he was City Editor of the Independent on Sunday.

Robert is a past winner of the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year Award (2005), the London Press Club's Scoop of the Year Award (2005), Granada Television's What the Papers Say award for investigative journalist of the year (1994) and the Wincott Young Financial Journalist of the year (1986). In 2007, he won the Work Foundation awards for Broadcaster of the Year and Broadcast Documentary of the Year.

He is the author of Brown's Britain, published in 2005, which was described by Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, as 'of unusual political significance'. He has since published another book, Who Runs Britain (Hodder and Stoughton).

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The Right Reverend Stephen Platten, Bishop of Wakefield (born 1947), was educated at London University, Trinity College Oxford and Cuddesdon College. Ordained deacon in 1975, he has served as a Curate in Oxford, Chaplain and Tutor at Lincoln Theological College, Director of Ordinands and Residentiary Canon at Portsmouth, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Ecumenical Affairs and then Dean of Norwich, before being nominated as Bishop of Wakefield in 2003. He is Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome and Chairman of the Liturgical Commission. He is Chairman of SCM Canterbury Press and a governor of Hymns Ancient and Modern. He continues to retain strong international interests.

He is married to Rosslie, who is National Moderator for the children’s literacy scheme, Catch Up, and a Diocesan Schools Visitor. They have sons. His recreations include walking, music, literature and Northumberland. He is also the author and editor of a number of books.

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Anthony Salz worked, as a corporate lawyer, at the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer until 2006, and was senior partner from 1996. Projects on which he worked included the merger of Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television with British Satellite Broadcasting to form BSkyB. After over 30 years in law, he moved into banking, as an executive vice-chairman at Rothschild.

He sat on the Board of Governors of the BBC, and was Acting Chairman following Michael Grade's resignation in 2006. A member of Tate Gallery's Corporate Advisory Group and a Trustee of Tate Foundation, he is also a Trustee of the Eden Project, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Conran Foundation, and a Director of Habitat for Humanity GB, a housing charity. He is a member of the Advisory Panel for the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue.

Anthony has been closely involved with Business in the Community, an organisation dedicated to helping businesses make a positive impact on society, and has sat on committees concerned with homelessness and education.

His main interests include his family and home, travelling, art, theatre, golf, fishing and Southampton FC.

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Albert Scardino, 58, is an independent journalist and commentator for British and American news organizations. He is also chairman of Auctionair Limited, an on-line auction, marketing and retailing company providing services to charities, media organisations and commercial operators. Albert spent 35 years as a journalist, including periods as a reporter and editor for The New York Times and as an executive editor for The Guardian. In 1984, he won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing at The Georgia Gazette, a weekly newspaper he founded with his wife, Marjorie. He was a judge for the Orwell Prize 2008.

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Sue Stapely is a solicitor and former BBC programme maker who for the past decade has specialised in reputation, crises and issues management counsel for businesses, organisations and individuals of all kinds. She has handled many major news stories, and on a pro bono basis worked for several members of the public who have inadvertently been caught up in the media glare - running the campaign for Sally Clark and her family, for example, and supporting the fiancee of Tom ap Rhys Pryce, the young lawyer stabbed to death in January 2006. Her book, Media Relations for Lawyers (The Law Society) is the recommended text for lawyers when dealing with the media.

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Sir Robert came to Britain from America in 1969 to set up MORI (Market & Opinion Research International), one of the 20 largest market research firms in the world, before merging with the Ipsos Group in 2005. In 2004, he became a British subject after being selected as a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Kent.

He is Chancellor of the University of Kent, and a governor of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is currently a Visiting Professor of Government at LSE and Honorary Professor at Warwick University and the University of Kent. He has previously been Visiting Professor in the Graduate Centre for Journalism at City University, London, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds five honorary degrees and is an Honorary Fellow of both LSE and Kings.

He is Chairman of the Pilgrims Society, a Governor of the English-Speaking Union, and a Trustee of the Magna Carta Trust. He is a Freeman of the City of London, a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation and a Member of the Fulbright Commission.

He is a Non-Executive Director of Kent Messenger Group, and is a Kent County Council appointed Kent Ambassador, on the Kent Partnership Board and served on the Medway Hospital Board.

Sir Robert was Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee and is now Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Librarian. He was President of ENCAMS (Keep Britain Tidy), and is still a Vice President of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation/Wildlife Trusts, of the United Nations Association and of the European Atlantic Group. He is a Trustee of WWT (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) and a former Trustee of WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature).

He is frequent broadcaster, and is author/co-author, co-editor and editor of more than a dozen books and many articles in newspapers, magazines and in professional journals. His most recent book, with Roger Mortimore and Paul Baines, is Explaining Labour's Landslip (Politico's, 2005).

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• Wikipedia Sir Robert Worcester biography