Hundred Group

The Hundred Group is a lobby group for finance directors of the UK’s largest companies. It is described as “the most influential organisation that you’ve never heard of”."

Lobbying

It has reportedly had tax issues at the top of its agenda for years.

According to former Hundred Group Chairman Philip Broadley, who called the organisation “a peculiarly British idea”: “The Hundred Group has been around for 35 years, influencing in a quiet way. It’s a successful formula and I’m not about to radically change it.”

Journalist Melanie Stern, writing in Financial Director in November 2010 challenges this approach:

"The Hundred Group must review this strategy. Though it may be thought some sort of best practice for a group of such high-ranking FDs to keep schtum on high-ranking conversations and deals brokered, even giving the group an air of authority and mystique that reconfirms its image as a top-flight pressure group, it has always seemed bizarre that their chairman seemingly could never make the time to return calls from journalists covering those efforts on behalf of FDs everywhere."

People

• Andy Halford, Chairman (from 23 November 2010). Halford is Vodafone’s chief financial officer (CFO). Halford was at the centre of the phone company’s recent, controversial battle with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over tax owed from its Luxembourg subsidiary. Halford has raising the profile of the group would be one of his priorities.