Gong for City superwoman who broke the glass ceiling
CITY superwoman Helena Morrissey has topped the list of business leaders in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Morrissey, 51, famously juggled a job at the top of the male-dominated investment industry with raising nine children.
She has now been made a dame for her drive to promote female executives through the 30pc Club, which aimed to get women into three in every ten board positions by 2015 and has been copied worldwide.
Cambridge- educated, she joined fund manager Newton in 1994 and rose rapidly up the ranks to become chief executive.
She moved to Legal & General earlier this year as head of personal investing.
The businesswoman – who is married to ex-journalist Richard – still gets home at 6pm most nights for dinner with the family.
Others to pick up gongs include John Timpson, 74, the owner of key cutting and shoe repair chain Timpson, knighted for his efforts to help former criminals get back into society. His chain employs 600 ex-con- victs. Malcolm Walker, the 71-year-old boss of frozen food firm Iceland, was knighted for services to retailing and entrepreneurship, after opening his first shop in 1970.
And a knighthood went to Israeli-Australian Frank Lowy, 86, who lived in a Hungarian ghetto during the Second World War, but went on to found the Westfield shopping centre empire.