Ian Livingston

Ian Livingston, Lord Livingston of Parkhead was appointed minister of state for trade and investment in December 2013 and leads on foreign commonwealth and office relations with British business. He is a Conservative member of the House of Lords.

History

Livingston was CEO of BT Group from 2008 until 2013. Having joined BT in 2002, he served on the BT Group Board as Group Finance Director and CEO BT Retail, its consumer and small business division.

Before this, Livingston was group finance director at Dixons Group plc from the age of 32 making him the youngest FTSE 100 CFO. He also worked for 3i plc, Bank of America and Arthur Andersen. He was previously a non executive director of Hilton Group plc and is currently a non executive director on the board of Celtic plc.

Outside of politics

Lord Livingston left his role as Minister of state for Trade and Investment in May 2015, and sought the advice of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments in regards to taking up some new appointments outside of government. The first was a part-time, paid appointment with Man Group an investment/fund manager, for whom he would eventually become non-executive chairman. Providing that he did not employ any privileged information from his time in government and that he served a two year lobbying ban from his last day in office, he was permitted to take up the role, and did so in December 2015.

He again requested ACOBA's advice on a part-time paid position with Dixons Carphone as deputy chairman. As long as he followed the conditions they applied to his previous appointment, the committee saw no problem with Livingston taking the role on, and it was confirmed in December 2015. The third request Livingston made to the committee concerned a non-executive directorship and future non-executive chairmanship of the audit committee of Belmond Ltd, a hotel and leisure company. It was noted that Mr Livingston had met with competitors of Belmond while in office on a trade mission to China, but the committee was assured that no sensitive information was exchanged. Providing he stick to the conditions from his previous appointments, he was allowed to take up the role, as was the case in November 2015.

A further appointment was an unpaid, part-time role as non-executive director on the board of trustees of Jewish Care, a charity specialising in health and social welfare support for the Jewish community. Given that he applied the same conditions as his previous appointments, the committee found no issue with it, and it was confirmed in November 2015.

In June 2016, he again sought ACOBA's advice about a part time role as member of the advisory board of Livingbridge, a private equity investor. The committee found no conflict of interest between the organisation and his former political career, and the appointment was taken up in September 2016.