The new President of the Royal Bath & West of England Society is The Right Honourable Lord Waldegrave of North Hill.
He took over the reins from The Most Hon. The Marquess of Salisbury, PC, DL at the Society’s Council meeting at the Bath & West Showground on Thursday (November 24th).
Welcoming Lord Waldegrave to the meeting, Mr John Vintcent, chairman of the Society’s Executive Board, paid tribute to his distinguished career. The new President is following in his late father’s footsteps at a time when the Showground once again faces a new phase – a multi-million pound fund-raising project to finance new exhibition halls and redevelopment at the Showground.
His father, Earl Waldegrave, had been one of the team of leading Society members who spear-headed the Society’s move to a permanent home at the Bath & West Showground in the mid-sixties. Said Lord Waldegrave, of North Hill, Chewton Mendip: “I feel in the shade of my father who will be keeping a close a critical eye on me I am sure! He was one of the group who led the Society to buy the Showground here. It was undoubtedly then the right decision, but it leaves us with challenges – but challenges are also opportunities. It is fitting that I should have some association at this moment when the next great phase begins.”
Lord Waldegrave served as a Conservative MP for Bristol West from 1979 to 1997, including 16 years service as a Minister, of which seven years were as a Cabinet Minister (Minister of Agriculture, Chief Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State for Health, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster)
He joined UBS in June 2003 as a Vice Chairman of the Investment Banking Department. Between 2003 and 2005 he was also chairman of the European Financial Institutions Group. He had previously held similar posts at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein where he had worked on a number of major transactions since joining the bank in 1998. He is also a non-executive Director of Bank of Ireland Financial Services (UK) plc and Finsbury Life Sciences Investment Trust plc.
Educated at Oxford University and Harvard, before entering Parliament he worked in the Cabinet Office at Whitehall, as Political Secretary to Prime Minister Edward Heath, and for GEC Ltd.
Lord Waldegrave is Chairman of the Rhodes Trust, Chairman of the National Museum of Science and Industry, and a Trustee of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation.