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| CIMA WM Chairman, Paul Hooper-Keeley, with Lord Digby Jones |
We are
delighted to announce that Lord Digby Jones will be our keynote speaker for our
CIMA West Midlands Prestige Event on the evening of Thursday 29th
June 2017.
Our
Prestige Event, following recent tradition, will be held at The Council House
in Birmingham.
Lord
Jones’ graduation from University College London was followed by 20 years with
Edge & Ellison, a Birmingham-based firm of lawyers, where he worked his way
up from Articled Clerk to Senior Partner. During these years he was intimately
involved in all aspects of business from running the firm “as a business” to
recruiting and managing several hundred employees. It was here that he
developed a vision of business and its role in society, and began to believe
firmly in socially inclusive wealth creation.
In 2000
he joined the CBI and was able to put some of these ideas into action. During
his six and a half years as Director General he became known in the public
arena especially for his candid, forthright attitude in his many media
appearances.
He
campaigned relentlessly on a range of issues including the move from
traditional manufacturing of commodities to value-added, innovative products
and services. He also lobbied against protectionism protesting that “it is a
scourge which may well find short term popularity but inhibits growth, reduces
wealth and oppresses the weak”.
His
views on the Public Sector remain a subject of great debate. He has stressed
that, "if fundamental reform does not take place, from working practices
right through to pension provision, we will end up with an ever-diminishing
private sector trying to pay for, and provide pensions for, an ever increasing
and inefficient, unproductive, self-interested public sector".
In 2005
he was knighted for his services to business and became Sir Digby Jones in the
Queen’s New Years Honours List.
When he
left the CBI in 2006 he spent the next 12 months in the private sector as
adviser to Deloitte and Barclays Capital, held a variety of non-executive board
roles, and was the unpaid UK Skills Envoy. In this role he became outraged
about the levels of adult illiteracy and innumeracy in the UK, and made the
point that we cannot hope to have a safer and healthier society if people lack
self-respect or aspiration.
In July
2007 he was appointed Minister of State for UK Trade & Investment and
became a life peer taking the title, Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham Kb.
Forthright and, as ever, loyal to British business he spent the next 15 months
“doing it in a different way”. He did not join the party of government and
without the ambition to progress in politics he concentrated on the business of
promoting Britain across the world, travelling to 31 countries in 45 overseas
visits.
