Master and Wardens

Piers was born just about within the sound of Bow Bells and has spent the majority of his life in London.

He grew up in Ealing, in West London and went to school as a ‘direct grant’ boy in Hammersmith. On leaving school he went on to study Economics at the University of Leeds. Graduating at the height of the miners’ strike, he was fortunate to secure a job in the City, based in, what was then the Nat West Tower. His love of the City, its history and all things therein blossomed from there. He went on to spend a period working for the Merchant Bank Kleinwort Benson, and spent 10 years as the Treasurer of HFC Bank. Piers holds professional qualifications in both Banking and Treasury.

Turning 40, Piers became the Chief Executive of the Housing Finance Corporation, a not-for-profit finance company that provides long-term institutional funding to Housing Associations. In the 22 years Piers ran THFC, it grew to lend over £8bn to in excess of 160 Housing Associations. His work took him throughout the UK and impressed on him the sheer diversity that exists throughout the nation. He has worked closely with a number of parts of the UK Government as well as the European Investment Bank. He has also worked for the Australian Commonwealth Government, been a part time regulator, and is now also the Chair of Newbury Building Society in his spare time. He also has a keen interest in the sustainability of housing stock and is Chair of the standards reporting body Sustainability for Housing.

Piers and his wife Michele have three daughters, the eldest of whom, Hannah, is also a Liveryman. In whatever spare time he has, Piers enjoys playing music and is a trustee of Ealing Junior Music School, one of the largest music schools in London.

Piers has been a Liveryman since 2009 and thought he was the first in his family to join the Livery, until he recently discovered his great-great grandparents appear to have been Lightermen! Introduced to the Company by Past Master Graham Stow, he has been actively involved in the Livery throughout his relatively swift rise to becoming Master. He has yet to escape serving on the Finance Committee and as many will know has fostered the close links the Curriers now enjoy with the Aerodrome School in Croydon. He is particularly proud of the links this relationship has, in turn, helped form with the Mayoralty. In his year he has a simple goal of promoting and widening the network of the Curriers. “As a Company we have learned to punch above our weight, by using our brains. We have an enormous breadth of experience and talent in the Livery and I would like us to use what we already have to further our goals of supporting the bespoke leather industry, education and our military affiliations”.

Elected 18th October 2024

Bridget is an economist by background, initially teaching at Oxford University. Subsequently, she started several economic consultancies and grew them successfully before getting itchy feet and starting again. More recently, she has moved into non-executive roles and is currently Chair of Flood Re and of the M6 Toll Company and a non-executive for Northumbrian Water Group, and the UK Infrastructure Bank as well as founder and Senior Adviser of Volterra Partners. She has been Chair of Atom Bank, Senior Independent Director for Network Rail, and Chair of Risk for Ulster Bank. For ten years, she was the Chief Economic Adviser to the Greater London Authority. Her book, ‘Reinventing London’ was published in 2014. She has a background too in major railway projects including HS1, Crossrail, Crossrail2 and HS2.

She was appointed CBE in December 2018 and is also a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Academy of Social Science and the Society of Professional Economists.

She continues to work because it is enjoyable and she hopes that what she does helps improve decision-making and makes it possible for people to have better lives. When not working, she takes her dog for walks, gets out in the garden, or knits and does needlepoint. She has been known to go trekking but at present the new house in Lincolnshire and the demands of planning improvements are taking all her remaining time.

Elected 18th October 2024

Robert followed his father, Christopher, into the Curriers, becoming a Liveryman in 1991 and serving as the Junior Warden in 2013.

Unusually, in this day and age, he worked his entire career for the same company, Miller Insurance group, a Lloyd’s broker, where he worked in the marine team. During the early 1990s he spent a couple of years based in Greece where he learned Greek. He retired in 2020.

Robert is married to Elizabeth, a non-executive director and Chair of various companies in the financial services sector. They have one son, William, and a yellow Labrador.

Robert enjoys watching cricket and rugby, is a member of the MCC, and also enjoys visiting London’s many and varied museums and galleries. He is delighted to have been elected as Renter Warden and is looking forward to serving the Company in that capacity.

Elected 18th October 2024

Nick spent a very happy childhood in Bowdon, Cheshire. He attended Manchester Grammar School before studying law at Cambridge University. His City connections began in the heady days of the mid-1980s when he joined Allen & Overy. There he met, and in 1994 married, the beautiful and long-suffering Samantha. In time he became a corporate partner, working for the firm in both Hong Kong and London, while Samantha blessed him with three, now adult, children. He later moved to another City law firm, DAC Beachcroft, where he headed its London corporate, finance and tax teams. The great-great-grandson of a Currier, he became a Liveryman in 2013 and is a former chair of the Company's Events Committee. Nick is a member of The Athenaeum and Hurlingham Clubs and - firmly believing retirement from full-time work to be quite splendid - now has more time to enjoy sport (especially tennis), travel and the arts as well as Company activities. He and Samantha have recently returned to London from a memorable two-year stint in the Cayman Islands, where she was the deputy principal of the leading primary school, and he is now greatly looking forward to serving as the Company's Junior Warden.

Elected 18th October 2024