Which? Limited Board
Which? Limited Board members
Chairman: Mike Clasper
Other members: Claudia Arney, Patrick Barwise, Jacques Cadranel, Neil Cameron, Chris Gardner, Andrew Mullins, Peter Vicary-Smith, Kevin Wall and Tony Ward
Mike Clasper, Chairman
Mike joined the Board in July 2008. He is currently the Senior Independent Director at ITV PLC. He was Non-executive Chairman of HM Revenue & Customs for four years, ending in August 2012.
His executive career spans Procter & Gamble, BAA PLC and Terra Firma. In a 23 year career with Procter and Gamble, he was managing director of their businesses in Holland and the UK. His final P&G role was President of Global Homecare. In 2001, he joined BAA PLC and became CEO in 2003. In 2006, the company was bought by a Spanish led consortium after a fiercely contested takeover battle and Mike left. He joined Terra Firma and was there for a year. His prime role was the transformation of the Marketing, Sales, Operations and IT organisations of EMI PLC.
In 1995 he was granted the title of CBE, and received an Honorary Doctorate from Sunderland University.
Claudia Arney
Claudia was appointed to the Board in March 2011. She is currently a director of a number of companies, including Halfords Group PLC. Previously she worked at EMAP as Group Managing Director, Media, Public Sector and Digital. From 2006 to 2008 she was at HM Treasury as Director, Enterprise and Growth Unit, responsible for many of the policy issues which affect business including competition, regulation and productivity. From 2001 to 2006 Claudia worked at Goldman Sachs as Global Director of Product Development, Investment Research Division, and was Executive Director, Equities Division, from 2001 to 2005.
Patrick 'Paddy' Barwise
Patrick was co-opted to the Council in January 2006, having previously served on it from 1995 to 2001, including three years as Deputy Chairman. He is emeritus professor of management and marketing at London Business School, which he joined in 1976 after an early career in IBM.
He has held a range of management roles at the School and published and consulted on a wide range of topics in management, marketing and the media. Patrick is a Council member of the Investment Committee.
Jacques Cadranel
After qualifying with Price Waterhouse Coopers, having worked in strategic consultancy and insolvency, Jacques spent 20 years in a variety of commercially focused finance roles, from large multinationals (Thomson Reuters, Readers Digest, Rio Tinto) to start-ups (Utilities Exchange and Carbon Markets).
With experience ranging from hands on operational activities to extensive Mergers and Acquisition achievements, growing and developing subscription based business has formed a cornerstone of Jacques' career - so coming to Which? as Group Finance Director was an ideal move.
Neil Cameron
Neil joined the Board in September 2007. He is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Unilever PLC and Unilever NV, with 30 years’ experience in the IT industry. He joined Unilever in July 2003 from Diageo plc, where he was also CIO.
Neil has also worked at Marks and Spencer – and in his last four years with the company, was CIO for their North American business. He also serves on the advisory boards of Hewlett Packard and the Leading Edge Forum.
Chris Gardner
Chris has been the Commercial Director at Which? since June 2007. Prior to this, he was Marketing Director for more than two years. Early in his career, Chris worked as a trader on the floor of the Stock Exchange, and as a strategy consultant. Before joining Which?, Chris was an independent marketing consultant for a couple of years, Marketing Director at Cancer Research UK, Deputy Director of Fundraising and Communications at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and worked in a number of marketing roles at Oxfam.
Andrew Mullins
Andrew was appointed to the Board in March 2011. He is currently Managing Director of the London Evening Standard, The Independent and i newspapers - he heads up the management of Alexander Lebedev's UK newspaper operations and reports into the Board of the two papers. He was Managing Director of the Evening Standard from 2007 to May 2010. Prior to that he was Marketing Director and General Manager at news International (The Times and Sunday Times 2001-2007). From 1995 to 2001 he held various roles at Diageo, including Managing Director of UDV Amsterdam, and from 1986 to 1995 he was Marketing manager for UK detergents at Unilever where he fulfilled a number of key marketing roles across the full portfolio of Lever Brothers brands in the UK and Italy.
Peter Vicary Smith, Chief Executive of Which?
Peter took over as Chief Executive of Which? in September 2004 after nearly eight years working as Director of Fundraising and Communications at what is now Cancer Research UK. He had started at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and our merger with Cancer Research Campaign was the largest ever merger in the voluntary sector.
Before that, as Head of Appeals, Peter was responsible for all central fundraising at Oxfam, which had been his first job in the charity sector after a distinctly commercial start to his career. Straight from university, Peter worked in marketing for Procter & Gamble and Mars before moving to the management consultancy, McKinsey.
Kevin Wall
Kevin joined the Board on 1 March 2010. He is a Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance, EMEA at Barclays Capital, based in London. He is responsible for the industry and geographic teams that cover Barclays Capital's corporate clients in the EMEA region. Kevin joined the Barclays Group in 1981. He has held roles in Corporate Banking, Project Finance and Foreign Exchange in the UK, US and Australia, followed by London-based management roles in Strategic Planning and Human Resources. This was followed by a series of investment banking roles in Asia. He returned to London in 2000.
Kevin is also Chairman of the Barclays Capital Charities Committee. He has a BSc (Hons) in Accounting and Financial Analysis from Warwick University.
Tony Ward
Tony joined the Board on 1 July 2012, having been first co-opted to the Council on 1 September 2011.
He has held a number of non-executive Director appointments and was most recently employed at BAA PLC 1997-2007 as Services Director responsible for IT, Airside Operations and Health and Safety. Prior to that he was Group Human Resources Director there and Chairman of the Pension Fund Trustee Board, until 2007.
Prior to BAA he worked for Kingfisher PLC as Group Human Resources Director (1992- 1997).
Chairman of the Group Audit Committee
Nick Castro
