President of the Fitzwilliam Society 2015-2016–Nigel Stapleton (1965)
Nigel Stapleton (MA, FCMA, Honorary Fellow) matriculated in 1965 and was, therefore, one of the first undergraduates to benefit from the new College buildings on the Storey’s Way campus. He took both parts of the Economics Tripos and had a tremendously active and enjoyable three years in Cambridge. His interests were more on the Arts, debating and social aspects of University life and so his sporting achievements were very modest! At that time ‘The Grove’ was still under family occupancy but when the College gained possession of it he was pleased to be able to fund the restoration of one of the ground floor rooms which become the Senior Common Room.
Nigel left to join the Graduate Management Development Scheme of the consumer products multi-national Unilever.He qualified with them as an accountant and in those days - when most of the senior appointments in their overseas businesses were filled by expatriates, joining Unilever was akin to working in the Foreign Office. During 18 years with Unilever, he worked in eleven different countries covering each of the five Continents. He left Unilever in 1986 - having worked in New York for four years as Vice President Finance for their North American businesses - to become Finance Director of the FTSE 100 Company, Reed International.In 1993 - when Reed merged with the Dutch professional publisher, Elsevier- he was appointed CFO of Reed Elsevier and three years later he became Co-Chairman. This was at the time when the internet was beginning to represent a big challengeto all hard copy publishers and Reed Elsevier made a significant investment to digitalise its massive archive of scientific and professional journals. From1999 he worked for three years in private equity and established a European presence for a North American Fund which focuses exclusively on the media industry. His interest in publishing and information still prevails and he is an active member of the CityLivery company- the Stationers’- where he served as its Master in 2011-12. The Company’s beautiful Livery Hall, near to St Paul’s Cathedral, has been the venue for the Society’s London dinner for the past two years and also for 2016.
Since 2002 Nigel has held a variety of non-executive roles in a variety of different parts of both the public and private sector.For seven years, he chaired the independent regulator of the UK postal industry and for five years he was Chairman of the convenience food manufacturer Uniq plc. He has been a non-executive of the London Stock Exchange, AXA’s UK subsidiary, and Reliance Security plc.Since 2009 he has been Chair of Trustees for the Mineworkers Pension Scheme and from 2014 also for the National Grid UK Pension Scheme: these defined benefit pension schemes collectively have assets of nearly £30 billion. For the past several years he has been working regularly in Kazakhstan, where he has served as an Independent Director of some of the state-owned commercial businesses and more recently as a Board member of the Holding company -SamrukKazyna- for all the country’s publicly owned commercial businesses, which collectively contribute nearly 50% of the nation’s GNP.
Nigel is married to Johanna - a Dutch National - and they have a son and a daughter who are now in their mid-20s.Their main interests are the Arts - particularly opera and chamber music -travel and looking after the lovely walled garden at their home in Walton on Thames, Surrey. He is active in that local community and has for several years been Chair of Governors at the nearby primary school.