Speaker Profiles
Colonel Bob Stewart DSO
Bob comes from a Service background. His mother was a Special Operations Executive operative and his father was a signaller in RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. Thereafter they met and married in Germany and his father became a regular RAF officer in peacetime. He spent his early childhood with them at RAF stations in the UK and Middle East before being sent away to boarding school. Red/green colour blind he was not able to follow his father into the RAF's Flying Branch so joined the Army.
After RMA Sandhurst he became an infantry officer and joined the Cheshire Regiment. In 1974 the Army selected him to go to university as an in-service degree officer at the University of Wales where he took a First. In total he completed over 3 years on operational tours in Northern Ireland. In 1992 - 93 he was British United Nations Commander in Bosnia. After Bosnia he was awarded the DSO and promoted to Colonel. His last international appointment was as Chief of Policy at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Belgium. He left the Army in 1996. For 3 years he was Senior Consultant for Public Affairs at Hill & Knowlton (UK) Ltd. In 1998 he became Managing Director of WorldSpace (UK) Ltd with responsibility for establishing satellite broadcasting worldwide. For the last 8 years he has been a freelance writer, broadcaster and lecturer, specialising in Leadership, Security, Intelligence, Motivation, Crisis Management, and Negotiation.
Bob Stewart’s book, ‘Broken Lives’, about command during the Balkan War, was a best seller and he often appears as a commentator on television and radio. He has presented several programmes for Channel 5 TV on the art of negotiation and he wrote and presented a short BBC 1 film on the need for rules on torture to be reviewed. In 2008 he was voted European Business Speaker of the Year. His book, ‘Leadership under Pressure’ was published in 2009.
He was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Beckenham in 2010.Charles Grimes
Business Consultant
Charles Grimes has been variously described by clients as both “Superman” and “Renaissance Man”. For some reason, his family and others that know him well see him as neither!
Qualifying initially as a Chartered Surveyor, he then moved into Broadcasting (for Radio Television Hong Kong and the BBC) and, for the last 13 years has been consulting with some of the most successful brands in the world including British Airways, BP, GSK, Pfizer, Lloyds Bank, and McDonalds. He advises companies in three main areas: Personal Leadership, Change, and Team Development
He holds an MSc (in Organisation Change) from Ashridge Business School, he teaches on the Advanced Management Programme at Henley Business School, and is a Faculty member of the LBCambridge Spring and Summer School for In-house Lawyers held at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
He is also the Director of Personal Impact Excellence, a unique 6-month learning opportunity for senior individuals who aspire to being more than they currently are, who are ambitious, and who know they have more to offer.David Bennett,
Executive Director, Abbey
David gained an economics degree from Queens’ College, Cambridge. He then joined the Corporate Banking arm of Grindlays Bank before moving to work in the Treasury operations of firstly Chemical Bank, London and then later Abbey National Building Society.
In 1988 David was appointed Assistant Treasurer of Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society, becoming Treasurer and a member of the Executive in 1989. He was given responsibility for the retail investments in 1990, which included the postal savings operation run out of the merged Portsmouth Building Society. In 1993 he attended the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School. On his return David became a member of the three-man team that negotiated the sale of C&G to Lloyds Bank. Subsequent to the announcement of the deal, David worked with Lloyds Bank management on a plan for the integration of the two businesses. In January 1995 he was appointed Head of Sales & Marketing responsible for C&G’s branch network, with a key part of the brief being to implement the integration plan. In August 1995 he was appointed to the Board of C&G as Finance Director, whilst keeping sales and marketing responsibilities. In November 1996 David became Director of Risk Management of the National Bank of New Zealand (a subsidiary of Lloyds TSB) based in Wellington and subsequently Chief Executive of Countrywide Bank following its acquisition by NBNZ.
David joined Alliance & Leicester as Group Treasurer in January 1999. He was appointed to the Group Board in January 2000 and became Group Finance Director in October 2001 before becoming Group Chief Executive in July 2007. Following the acquisition of Alliance & Leicester by Group Santander in October 2008 David became an Executive Director of Abbey(also part of Group Santander), which he left in July 2009 to pursue a plural career.
David is currently a non-executive director of easyJet plc, Pacnet ltd and Clarity Commerce Solutions plc.
David is married with two sons.John Sutherland,
John’s career spans 37 years in Financial Services; he started out in 1974 as an office junior for Lloyds Bank stamping cheques, filing statements and making tea, badly.
In 2011 he was appointed as a Senior Adviser at the Financial Services Authority. As a Senior Adviser John provides senior level engagement within FSA and also with regulated firms. He provides advice and input to Executive management at the FSA on a range of supervisory and industry matters. He is also provides coaching, advice and feedback on sector, firm and thematic risk assessment, risk mitigation and handling of crystallised risk.
In 2010 he was appointed CEO Stroud and Swindon Building Society with a brief to steer it into the safe harbour of a merger with the Coventry Building Society.
During 2009 John worked full time as Senior Adviser in the Bank of England’s Special Resolution Unit providing senior and specialist building society and financial services expertise during a very difficult period for the Building Society sector.
Before working for the Bank of England John spent 20 years at Nationwide Building Society; he led teams in Payment Services, the Retail Branch Network, Back Office Operations and Technology culminating in appointment as Executive Director Sales & Marketing.
He still makes tea badly.David Amos,
David Amos is one of the Principals of Amos & Bailey Ltd, a boutique executive search consultancy.
Before entering executive search David Amos had an international career in manufacturing, operations and HR for Unilever, Courtaulds, Hilton International and United Assurance Group plc. He was also a senior member of the team that brought BCH Vehicle Management to a successful flotation on the London Stock Exchange.
He has been a main board Director of PLCs in both an executive as well as non-executive capacity.
He was educated at Imperial College London and Stanford University, California.
He was a Director and Trustee of Cancerbackup for fifteen years until it merged with Macmillan Cancer Support.
