Nigel Mobbs

Sir Nigel Mobbs (died in 2013) is former Hon. Treasurer of the Conservative Party, 1993-96. He is Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire.

"After a year at the company, aged 24 Mobbs married Jane Berry, the daughter of the press baron Viscount Kemsley, whom he had met at a hunt. Two years later, in 1963, he joined the board of Slough Estates as a director. In 1976, when his father, Gerald, died, Nigel Mobbs moved into the dual role of chief executive and chairman. He continued in both roles until 1996, when Roger Carey, who had been managing director of Slough Estates for 18 years, resigned...

"He showed similar mettle in 1995 when, as deputy chairman of the retail giant Kingfisher, which owns B&Q, Woolworth's and Superdrug, he orchestrated a boardroom coup that removed the chief executive Alan Smith and put the chairman Sir Geoff Mulcahy in Smith's former role. Mobbs promptly made himself interim chairman before appointing the McKinsey man Sir John Banham to the role. In 1998, he was equally decisive when Martin Taylor resigned as chief executive of Barclays Bank, where Mobbs was the senior non-executive director. Although he could not stop Taylor from resigning, Mobbs was credited with being a steadying influence on the bank as it went through this "rough patch", and spent two years as chairman...

"Mobbs was knighted in 1986, and appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire in 1997. He was a long-term supporter and fund-raiser for the Conservative Party, and was the party's treasurer from 1993 until 1996. As well as chairing the right-wing pressure group Aims of Industry, he was an adviser to Margaret Thatcher's government on property affairs between 1980 and 1986.

"A portfolio executive, Mobbs was chairman of the Charterhouse banking group for seven years and became chairman of Bovis Homes in 1996. He was a director of the electronics manufacturer Cookson, and also a director of and adviser to the Howard de Walden Estate, which owns most of Marylebone in central London." [1]

Positions held

• Barclays Bank, non-executive director
• Slough Estates plc, Chairman
• Aims of Industry, Chairman
• Charterhouse Holdings Ltd (USA), Director
• Bovis Homes Group, director
• Howard de Walden Estates
• Allnat London Properties
• Guildhall Property Company

References

• Candidlist Roll of Shame, Candidlist website, accessed January 2004