The High Sheriff of the West Midlands 2025

I was born in Leicester in 1963, but moved to the West Midlands in 1975, the year after the County of West Midlands came into existence. My father was an Engineer who worked in Wednesbury and my mother was Executive Assistant who worked in Stirchley.

I attended King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys in Aston from 1975 through to 1982 and despite seeming to spend a bit too much time playing sport, I managed to get a place at the University of Manchester to study Economics, Accounting and Business Finance. I graduated with a First Class Honours degree in 1985, but made the wise choice to return to the West Midlands, where I started a training contract at Price Waterhouse to become a Chartered Accountant.

I qualified as an ACA in 1988 and then enjoyed overseas secondments to Antwerp in Belgium and Sydney in Australia, before being admitted to the Partnership of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1997. I initially worked in Transaction Services, before being asked to lead PwC’s Assurance practice in the Midlands from 2005. In 2008, I was appointed as the Regional Chairman for PwC, a role which I undertook for 7 years. This involved oversight of a practice of approximately 2,000 people and one of my best decisions was to choose One Chamberlain Square as the new home for PwC in Birmingham.

In 2017, I was asked to become the COO of PwC’s UK Assurance practice, which at the time comprised over 8,000 people. Whilst this invariably involved a lot of train journeys to London, I kept the West Midlands as my base.

During my time leading PwC in the Midlands, I was on the regional CBI Council and involved with the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. I also served on the Board of Marketing Birmingham, which then became the West Midlands Growth Company, for 8 years. Since I retired from PwC in 2021, I have been the Chair of the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee of the West Midlands Combined Authority as well as a Non-executive Director of Castings PLC.

In addition to sport, I have a great passion for the creative industries, which is an industry in which the UK remains world-leading. I have been delighted to be on the boards of The Birmingham Hippodrome, The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Birmingham Rep, and I am also a patron of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Birmingham Royal Ballet. As well as the joy which these organisations bring to people’s lives, they also provide excellent opportunities for young people to develop and build broad technical and life skills.

I have been lucky enough to be married to my wonderful wife, Amanda, for over 25 years, and we are blessed to have two fabulous daughters, Charlotte and Lucy.