Artistes of the Month
Also featured: Professor Alan Barrell, Nick Ross
Lord Chris Patten
Christopher
Francis Patten was born in 1944. He was educated at St Benedict's School,
Ealing and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern History and was
elected a Domus Exhibitioner. In 1965 he won a Coolidge Travelling Scholarship
to the USA.
Lord Patten joined the Conservative Research Department in 1966. He was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 1970 and was personal assistant and political secretary to Lord Carrington and Lord Whitelaw when they were Chairmen of the Conservative Party from 1972-1974. In 1974 he was appointed the youngest ever Director of the Conservative Research Department, a post which he held until 1979.
Lord Patten was elected as Member of Parliament for Bath in May 1979, a seat he held until April 1992.
In 1983 he wrote THE TORY CASE, a study of Conservatism. Following the General Election of June 1983, Lord Patten was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and in September 1985 Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science. In September 1986 he became Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1989 and was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1998. In July 1989 Patten became Secretary of State for the Environment. In November 1990 he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chairman of the Conservative Party, a position from where he masterminded John Major's General Election victory.
Lord Patten was appointed Governor of Hong Kong in April 1992, a position
he held until 1997, overseeing the return of Hong Kong to China. He was
Chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland
set up under the Good Friday Peace Agreement, which reported in 1999.
In September 1999 he was appointed European Commissioner for External
Relations, a post he held until November 2004. On leaving office in Brussels
he was made a life peer. Lord Patten is also Chancellor of Newcastle and
Oxford Universities.
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University in 1999, and elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2003.
Lord Patten married Lavender Thornton in 1971. They have three daughters, Kate (born in 1973), Laura (1974) and Alice (1979).
Lord Patten reads a lot and is keen on tennis and gardening. In 1998,
he wrote EAST AND WEST, a book on Asia and its relations with the rest
of the world. NOT QUITE THE DIPLOMAT was published in October 2005 by
Penguin Books and came out in the US from Henry Holt in January 2006 with
the title COUSINS AND STRANGERS. His latest book THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS,
was published in 2007.
Professor Alan Barrell
Following
a scientific training and six years working in the hospital laboratory service,
Alan Barrell has spent almost thirty years in senior executive positions
in technology based industries. He worked around the world with Baxter Healthcare,
the world's largest Health technology company and was Chief Executive of
Baxter UK for six years. Subsequently he switched industries and joined
a very small Cambridge Phenomenon company in industrial electronics, Domino
Printing Sciences, as Managing Director. Alan stayed six years, during which
time Domino grew internationally and was listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Today Domino plc has revenues of £200 million plus a market capitalisation
approaching £300 million.
Alan's last full time Chief Executive position was six years with Willett International, a manufacturing and marketing company in industrial electronics which now has businesses in 100 countries, 26 overseas subsidiaries and sales of more than £100 million.
Since early 1998 Alan's business life has been spread between non-executive chairmanship of smaller technology companies, engagement with N W Brown Capital Partners in raising a new regional early stage technology venture capital fund of £35 million [The Cambridge Gateway Fund] and work with charities in which he has special interests. These include the Papworth Trust where he is Hon. Treasurer, The Royal Society of Arts Manufactures and Commerce (where he has been Treasurer and member of the Trustee Board) The Centre For Tomorrow's Company of which he was Vice Chairman for four years, and The Princes Trust. He is also closely associated with the Cambridge Enterprise Conference, which has been held six times over the past eight years. He has acted as Chairman of the Steering Committee and Hon. Treasurer.
Raising and investing the Cambridge Gateway Fund was a major effort, and one of the rewards was the election of the Fund, with Alan as Managing Partner as "Investor of the Year" in the Cambridge Evening News Business Excellence Awards 2002.
Alan is also a founder shareholder in Library House Ltd, a successful Cambridge based Investor organisation, which connects member investor firms, such as Venture Capital Funds, with emerging technology companies seeking finance.
Alan's most recent appointments have been as Entrepreneur in Residence, University of Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre and Visiting Professor of Enterprise, University of Luton School of Graduate Business Studies. In the summer of 2003 he was appointed Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship, University of Xiamen, Fujian Province, China. He has also been appointed Chairman of Health Enterprise East - a new organisation supported by the Regional development Agency and the National Health Service - aiming to exploit innovative inventions, processes and procedures within Hospitals and other Health related institutions - for the good of society at large and to enable the Health Service to benefit financially from commercialisation.
Addendum 24th January 2005 - Appointed Chairman, Health Enterprise East Ltd. A partnership between East of England development Agency and National Health Service, to find and exploit Innovation and Intellectual property in NHS Hospitals and Research Centres. Also appointed Chairman, Advanced Protein Systems Ltd - a spin out from Science City in Nottingham.
Addendum 1st April 2005 - Appointed Chairman, Medilink East (Medical Devices Industry Association).
Addendum 21st April 2005 - Awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion. One of the first ten recipients of this Award in its inaugural year.
Addendum 27th June 2005 - Appointed Non-Executive Chairman of E-Financial
Management Ltd., a company offering an innovative "pay as you go"
outsourcing service enabling businesses in the SME marketplace to acquire
all the necessary skill levels in financial management they need to prosper.
Nick
Ross 
Brought up in London, then read psychology at Queen's University Belfast.
(The Nobel-laureate Seamus Heaney was among his teachers and the youngest
MP Bernadette Devlin was among his contemporaries.)
He became involved in student politics, won the largest popular vote in
the student union's history, and became a member of the students' union
executive at a time when tensions were building in the province and the
student movement was at the centre of events. He was deputy president
of the union when the troubles broke out in earnest, and remained in Northern
Ireland for seven years. He was among the first to conduct academic research
into the troubles in Northern Ireland, investigating prejudice among school
children: "Identification of Religious Affiliation from Static Physiognomic
Cues in a Sectarian Social Milieu" or "Can you tell Catholics
from Protestants just by looking?" (He showed that for practical
purposes - and contrary to a widely held assumption in the Province -
people cannot discriminate accurately simply by appearance.)
He became involved in broadcasting more or less by chance, while still
a student. His first appearance, like most of those that followed, was
live. He reported regularly on the troubles for BBC Northern Ireland,
with news and documentaries (as well as a chat show), and witnessed much
of the bloodshed and political turmoil when the violence was at its height.
He intended to return to academics until tempted by offers of broadcasting
work in London. He has been a freelance ever since.
He has been a leading broadcaster across a wide range of issues, specialising
at various times in news, current affairs, politics, and crime.
He has gained a reputation as one of the best conference moderators and
chairs meetings for companies and government agencies around the world.
"Nick Ross chaired the event skilfully and sensitively"
London First on Nick Ross who chaired a mayoral hustings in March 2008
Further Information
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