Europhile CBI chief at heart of financial elite
CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn has positioned herself at the centre of Britain’s financial elite.
A Cambridge-trained economist – she graduated with a double first from Gonville and Caius College – Miss Fairbairn went on to study at prestigious institutions in Pennsylvania and Paris.
The 55-year-old went straight in at the deep end of international business, beginning her career at the World Bank before becoming a journalist at The Economist magazine, the bible of international capitalism.
It launched her on a path which took in top jobs in politics, the media and big business.
Miss Fairbairn, who lives in Winchester, worked as a policy adviser for former Tory prime minister Sir John Major from 1995 to 1997, helped create Freeview while in a senior role at the BBC, and served as a non-executive director at Lloyds Bank.
After the financial crisis, she sat on the board of the Financial Services Authority until the City watchdog was abolished amid claims it had failed in its duty as a regulator.
Despite her business drive, the mother-of-three still found time to travel the world with her family in 004.
Her husband, Canadian Peter Chittick, was one of the founders of the Hotel du Vin chain and a backer of Soho House, a private members club aimed at influential figures in the arts and media.
The pair have impeccable European credentials and own a luxury boutique hotel in Provence.
Miss Fairbairn became the first female head of the CBI last year, but she admitted it was still tough for women seeking to smash the glass ceiling.
After her appointment she criticised the practice of holding business dinners late into the night as ‘not very inclusive’ for female executives.
‘A lot of women – and I was one of them because I was bringing up three kids - just want to go home,’ she said.
‘It becomes quite lonely at the top. It becomes more isolated.’