Fresh setback for CBI as top policy chief jumps ship

THE CBI has suffered a fresh blow as one of its most senior executives joined a rival business lobby group after more than two decades.

Chief policy director Matthew Fell, who stood in as interim director- general when Tony Danker stepped aside earlier this year amid misconduct allegations, is to join Business LDN.

Fell will become director of competitiveness at the Londonfocused group next month.

His departure comes as the CBI fights for its existence following a sex harassment scandal. Rivals such as the British Chambers of Commerce are vying to replace it as Britain’s leading business lobby group.

Fell made no reference to the scandal in a series of tweets announcing his departure.

‘After almost 24 years, I’ve decided the time is right for me to leave the CBI,’ he said.

‘From the financial crisis to a pandemic, I leave knowing the CBI steps up when it matters most.’ CBI director- general Rain Newton-Smith, who took over as director-general last month, paid tribute to Fell for his ‘incredible 24-year service’ to the organisation.

Fell was left in temporary charge when claims about Danker first surfaced in March. Danker was later sacked after a probe but he said he had been made a ‘fall guy’. Separate allegations had meanwhile emerged about behaviour at the organisation before Danker joined, including rape claims.

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, who was director-general for five years until October 2020, insisted at the weekend that there was a ‘really good culture, very far from being a toxic culture’ at the CBI.

Last week John Allan, chairman of Tesco and a former president of the CBI, was forced out after the supermarket said allegations about him – including that he groped female colleagues – risked ‘becoming a distraction’. He described the claims as ‘utterly baseless’.