Howard Davies

Economics

Regulation

Leadership

Competitiveness 

Howard Davies is Director of the London School of Economics, a post he took up in September 2003.

Howard Davies was Chairman of the Financial Services Authority from 1997-2003 , the single regulator for the UK financial sector, which was created under his leadership from nine separate regulatory agencies.

From 1995-1997 he was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. Before that, from 1992-95 he was Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry and, from 1987-92, Controller of the Audit Commission. He was also, for six years, a director of GKN plc and a member of the International Advisory Board of Natwest.

In his earlier career he worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and H M Treasury, both as an official and as special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and for five years he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey and Co. Inc.

Howard Davies was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Merton College, where he took an MA in History and French. In 1979 he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and in 1980 gained an MSc in Management Science at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Throughout his career Howard Davies has written widely for publication, reviewing fiction for the Literary Review and The Times, historical and economics books for the Economist, The Times, the TLS and the Times Higher, among other publications. He writes regularly for the Financial Times. He has lectured extensively at home and overseas and is a regular participant in the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Howard Davies is a Trustee of the Tate, a member of the governing body of the Royal Academy of Music; Patron of Working Families; and in 2004 was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Merton College. Since 2003 he has been a member of the International Advisory council of the China Banking Regulatory Commission. In 2004 he joined the board of Morgan Stanley as a non-executive director, and in 2006 joined the Board of Paternoster plc, a new insurance company. In 2009 he became an advisor to the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore.

In 2006 he edited and introduced ‘The Chancellors’ Tales’ (Polity Press) a book on British economic policy from 1975 to 2000. In 2007 he chaired the judges for the Man Booker Prize for fiction. In 2008 he jointly authored ‘Global Financial Regulation: The Essential Guide’ (Polity Press). A new book by Davies and Green on Central Banks and the crisis will be published in 2010 by Princeton University Press.