John Browne

John Browne, Lord Browne of Madingley, is a crossbench member of the British House of Lords. He was group chief executive of BP from 1995 to 2007 and is now a senior business adviser to the Coalition government.

Browne is also chairman of fracking company Cuadrilla Resources and the managing partner of Riverstone Holdings, the venture capital firm that backs it.

Government advisory role

In June 2010 Browne was appointed as the government's Lead Non-Executive Director, charged with recruiting business leaders to reformed departmental boards.

His remit is to work with Secretaries of State to appoint non-executives to the board of each government department; to improve governance across Whitehall; and to build leadership and management through the non-executives and the boards. Lord Browne also convenes network meetings of non-executives across Whitehall to consider the big issues that challenge all government departments and share best practice.

Fracking and solar enthusiast

As chairman of controversial Cuadrilla Resources Browne has in recent years led the charge for fracking in the UK.

In November 2013 at a lecture at the London School of Economics Browne admitted however that shale gas exploration would not lower gas bills in the UK. This contradicted the high-profile claims made just months beforehand by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne that it could help curb soaring energy bills.

Browne told his audience that 'we should make more use' of solar technology. He appeared less supportive of the UK government's controversial decision to back EDF Energy's new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point. Nuclear power, said Browne, was 'very, very expensive indeed' and the siting of new reactors on the coast when sea level and storm surges are rising was a 'big issue' and that they must be made resilient.

Browne was also critical of the government's support for fossil fuel, describing the fact that more state subsidies are given to oil and gas than to renewable energy as 'like running both the heating and the air conditioning at the same time'.

Biography

Lord Browne of Madingley was born in 1948. He joined BP in 1966 as a university apprentice. He holds degrees from Cambridge University and Stanford University, California. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Academy of Engineering. He has numerous honorary degrees, fellowships and awards.

He joined the Board of BP in 1992 and became its Group Chief Executive in 1995 until 2007. He has been the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Apax Partners LLC (2006-7), non-executive director of Intel (1997-2006), DaimlerChrysler AG (1996-2001), Goldman Sachs (1997-2007) and SmithKline Beecham (1996-1999). He was voted ‘Most Admired CEO’ by Management Today from 1999-2002. He was knighted in 1998 and made a life peer in 2001.

He is presently a Partner of Riverstone Holdings LLC, a company which invests in renewable and conventional energy. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Tate, Chairman of the Trustees of the Queen Elizabeth II Prize for Engineering and Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. He is a member of a variety of other advisory boards.

Affiliations

• L1 Energy Fund - Browne is a member of L1’s advisory board, alongsideBG Group chairman Andrew Gould and former boss of US oil firm Anadarko Petroleum Jim Hackett. Alfa Group is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman. L1 will be run by his business partner German Khan, who becomes L1’s chief executive.