BCC Board of Directors
Martyn Pellew
President, British Chambers of Commerce
Martyn has been involved with the Chamber movement for over ten years as non-executive director of the North East Chamber of Commerce, where he was President from 2009 to 2011. He served as Vice President between July 2010 and July 2011.
Mr Pellew started his career in engineering, later working in the chemicals and leisure sectors in both the UK and the continent. His previous industrial and private sector experience includes working as a director for Unipart in rail and automotive logistics, for NFC and Exel (now DHL) in logistics and Ladbroke/Hilton hotels as sales and marketing then development director. He also worked both in UK and Germany in engineering (Morgan Crucible), construction (Wimpey), office equipment and chemicals/paints sectors (Hoechst). Martyn holds a portfolio of non-executive roles with a variety of public and private sector businesses.
John Longworth
Director General, British Chambers of Commerce
John Longworth originally trained as a scientist. Over the course of his career, he has served as an Executive Main Board Director of Asda Group Ltd and Asda Financial Services Ltd, and held senior director positions at Tesco Stores Ltd and the CWS Ltd.
His public roles have included the board of a Healthcare Trust and the British Retail Consortium. He was economic spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry, Chairman of its Distributive Trades Panel and Chairman of the Brussels based CIES International Product Standards and Trade Body.
A former Health and Safety Commissioner and Chairman of the HSE Audit Committee, John also sat on the original Deregulation Task Force. He assisted a leading Healthcare Trust to establish a commercial and marketing operation, and currently has a portfolio career as chair and founder of a venture capital-backed science and professional services business, SVA Ltd; non-executive director at the Co-operative Group Food Ltd; non-executive director of Nichols plc; and trustee of the social enterprise P3.
Kirk Fletcher
Managing Director, Experian
Kirk spent 19 years working within and across a wide range of Experian business units and roles, progressing from an entry level sales role to responsibility for a £200m P&L.
Kirk joined Experian in 1992 as a Junior Sales Executive and spent almost 10 years in various sales and sales leadership roles. In 1996 he took on responsibility for developing relationships within the Automotive sector and this quickly became one of the fastest growing areas of the company.
In June 2004 he became Sales Director for Experian’s Automotive division. A key responsibility of this role was the development and deployment of new data driven solutions across Experian’s franchise dealer clients. Kirk was appointed Managing Director for the Automotive business in October 2007 and led the business through a significant restructure. For 4 years he was Experian’s Financial Services Authority ‘Approved Person’ and was a registered Director of both Vehicle Mileage Check Ltd, an Experian business based in Nottingham, and the European Information Services Group BIGNet.
In April of 2009, he took on the combined role of leading Experian's Business Information and Automotive businesses in the UK and Ireland, taking full P&L responsibility for this £75m business and over 400 people covering offices in Nottingham, London, Manchester, Dublin and Paris. In November 2009 he was delighted to be invited to join the Board of the British Chamber of Commerce as a non-Executive Director and also maintains close links with the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce. A year later Experian took the decision to combine their market leading Consumer information business into Kirk's remit and he became MD for Consumer, Business Information and Automotive, with P&L responsibility for over 50% of Experian's UK revenue and 10% of Global revenues.
In September 2011 after almost 20 fantastic years with Experian Kirk took the decision to utilise his experience in a new venture with the formation of Roke Consulting Ltd, a specialist consulting organisation focused on delivering consistently high results for its clients.
Originally born in Nottingham when away from business he enjoys relaxing with his two daughters, Romy & Keeley, hill walking in the Peak District, lighting the BBQ at any opportunity and climbing the occasional mountain. In 2010 this latter activity saw him successfully reach the highest point in Western Europe, Mont Blanc, and the highest point in Northern Africa, Mount Toubkal, raising over £4,000 for the Armed Forces Charity, Help for Heroes.
Nora Senior
Vice President, British Chambers of Commerce
Nora Senior is Executive Chair UK Regions and Ireland of global public relations and public affairs consultancy, Weber Shandwick.
She has over 22 years experience of agency, specialising in corporate, public sector and government communications. She has significant expertise in working with both large organisations as well as start-up companies, across a wide range of sectors, including property/construction, finance, healthcare, technology and FMCG.
Prior to Weber Shandwick, she was Managing Director of The PR Centre based in Edinburgh, which she had established in 1990. This followed five years with Saatchi & Saatchi's Scottish-based PR consultancy, Hall Associates, where she was also Managing Director.
Nora has been recognised by a number of industry awards including Scottish Businesswoman of the Year (2003); a global ‘Stevie' award for Best Woman in Business in Europe, Middle East and Asia; a Scottish Woman of Achievement Award and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations for outstanding contribution to the PR industry in Scotland.
She is a non-executive Board member of the National Trust for Scotland and Vice Chair of the Scottish Chamber of Commerce (SCC), a Regional Adviser to the London Stock Exchange and Chair of the Women in Business Group (Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce).
Mark Froud
Chief Executive, Sussex Enterprise
Mark became the Chief Executive of Sussex Enterprise in June 2002. He started at Sussex Enterprise in September 1996 as Director of Economic Research and developed the company’s reputation for delivering high quality, action focused research that underpins our operational capability. In 2001 he became Director of Policy responsible for planning, media relations and campaigning activity, management of economic development projects, delivery of business networking opportunities to businesses and economic and customer research.
Mark is a Director of the West Sussex Economic Partnership, the West Sussex Economic Skills and Enterprise Board and a member of the Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership. He is also a governor of Central Sussex College Corporation, and is Chair of the Sussex Employment and Skills Board.
Before joining Sussex Enterprise Mark was commercial projects manager at the Policy Research Institute, based within Leeds Metropolitan University. He managed a team of 14 academics, selling and delivering research and policy development services to the public sector. Clients ranged from the Sri Lankan government to local government. Prior to that he was principal consultant with Enterprise plc and helped establish their consultancy business, developing it to a profitable turnover of over £10million p.a.
Clive Memmott
Chief Executive, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce
Clive took up his appointment as Chief Executive of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce on 6th September 2010. Prior to this he was a Director of Robinson Keane the executive recruitment consultancy and an experienced non executive director. He is Chairman of Enworks, a business support programme to help SMEs in the North West improve their environmental and economic performance and is a non executive director of Brockholes Enterprises Ltd, the commercial company of the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire Ltd and a Trustee of the National Football Museum.
After qualifying as a lawyer, Clive enjoyed a successful career in both industry and the public sector holding senior positions in the Hepworth, Steetley and Redland Groups and as MD of Tate Access Floor Systems before becoming Chief Executive of Business Link Lancashire, a role he held for over 8 years. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of Lancaster University Management School and has co-authored a book on improving business performance through effective and practical employee engagement – “Growing your own Heroes”.
Mark Clarke
Non-Executive Director, British Chambers of Commerce
Mark Clarke’s career has focused on the Central Government, financial services and management consultancy sectors, specialising in financial management and performance improvement.
He is currently a member of the House of Commons two Audit Committees, and University College London’s Finance and Investment Committees; and a Governor, and Finance Committee member, of Highgate School in London. He is also a member of BCC’s Audit & Risk Committee. He was a member of HM Treasury’s Exchequer Funds Audit Committee from 2007 to 2010.
He was Director General (Finance & Strategy) at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR, formerly the DTI and now BIS) from 2006 to 2008.
Before that he had a 25 year career in the financial services and management consultancy sectors, including Finance Director roles at Abbey and Barclays. Through the 1990s he was a management consultant at Coopers & Lybrand and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and in the 1980s he had a number of senior finance roles at TSB.
He started his career at Arthur Andersen & Co and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He is a graduate of Oxford University and has a MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE).
Ronan Quigley
Director of Finance & Administration
Ronan Quigley, Director of Finance and Administration, joined the BCC in 2001, and has extensive experience in financial and contractual management. Prior to joining the BCC Ronan worked as Financial Controller at Focus Central London – the largest UK Training and Enterprise Council. Previously Ronan worked as Head of Financial Management at Macmillan Cancer Support a charity promoting the development of cancer care and support. Ronan has also worked in a variety of roles in the private and public sector.
Ronan holds an MBA from the Open University Business School and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.