Simon Lewis

Simon has a long career in strategic communications, including roles on the Executive Committees of Centrica and Vodafone as Director of Corporate Affairs. He was Vice Chair EMEA at FTI Consulting and previously spent nine years as Chief Executive of the investment banking trade body the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

He has a longstanding interest in both education and social mobility, having chaired the UK-US Fulbright Commission from 2009-13 and currently is the Chair of Young Enterprise. He was awarded an OBE in 2014 for services to international education. Simon is also a founding member of the Speakers for Schools programme.

He also was the first Communication Secretary to the late Queen and Director of Communications and Official Spokesman at Number 10 for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Simon is a Non-Executive Director of Innovate Finance, and he now runs his own advisory firm Lewis Advisors, providing strategic counsel to business leaders, in partnership with his eldest son Thomas, and Stuart Roden, founding chair of Lansdowne Partners. Simon co-presents a popular weekly podcast on BBC Sounds called, ‘When It Hits the Fan’.