Jonathan Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell (born 5 October 1955) is a British businessman and academic and was Chairman of the

Financial Services Authority The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was a quasi-judicial body accountable for the regulation of the financial services industry in the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2013. It was founded as the Securities and Investments Board (SIB) in 19 ...

until its abolition in March 2013. He is a former Chairman of the

Pensions Commission The Pensions Commission was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom, reporting to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, set up to keep under review the regime for UK private pensions and long-term savings. The commission was ...

and the

Committee on Climate Change The Climate Change Committee (CCC), originally named the Committee on Climate Change, is an independent non-departmental public body, formed under the Climate Change Act (2008) to advise the United Kingdom and devolved Governments and Parliament ...

, as well as a former Director-General of the

Confederation of British Industry The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is a UK business organisation, which in total claims to speak for 190,000 businesses, this is made up of around 1,500 direct members and 188,500 non-members. The non members are represented through the 1 ...

. He has described himself in a BBC

HARDtalk ''HARDtalk'' is a BBC television and radio programme broadcast on the BBC News Channel, on BBC World News, and on the BBC World Service. Broadcast times and days vary, depending on broadcasting platform and geographic location. ''HARDtalk' ...

interview with

Stephen Sackur Stephen John Sackur (born 9 January 1964) is an English journalist who presents ''HARDtalk'', a current affairs interview programme on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. He was also the main Friday presenter of '' GMT'' on BBC World News. ...

as a ' technocrat'. He is a vocal advocate of monetary financing and "

helicopter money Helicopter money is a proposed unconventional monetary policy, sometimes suggested as an alternative to quantitative easing (QE) when the economy is in a liquidity trap (when interest rates near zero and the economy remains in recession). Altho ...

" whereby central banks would directly finance government spending or cash distribution to citizens. Since 2010, he has written monthly opinion columns on economic and regulatory policy for

Project Syndicate Project Syndicate is an international media organization that publishes and syndicates commentary and analysis on a variety of global topics. All opinion pieces are published on the ''Project Syndicate'' website, but are also distributed to a wi ...

Early life

Adair Turner was born in

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

. He grew up in

Crawley Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of ...

and

East Kilbride East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...

(both

new town New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

s. His father Geoffrey was a

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

-educated

town planner An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning. An urban planner may focus on a specific area of practice and have a title such as city planner, town ...

). Adair attended

Hutchesons' Grammar School Hutchesons' Grammar School is a co-educational independent day school for pupils aged 3-18 in Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded as Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School by George Hutcheson and Thomas Hutcheson in 1641 It is a selective school, ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

, then moved to

Glenalmond College Glenalmond College is a co-educational independent boarding school in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, for children aged between 12 and 18 years. It is situated on the River Almond near the village of Methven, about west of the city of Perth. ...

. He later went to

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

, where he took a Double first in History and Economics and became President of the

Cambridge Union The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1815, it is the oldest continuously running debati ...

. He was also Chairman of the University's Conservative Association. He joined the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(SDP) in 1981.

Business career

He taught economics part-time after university. His career with BP started in 1979 and he worked for

Chase Manhattan Bank JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and fi ...

from 1979 to 1982. He became a director of

McKinsey & Co McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

in 1994 after joining in 1982. Turner was Director-General of the

(CBI) from 1995 to 1999. In this role he became one of the leading proponents of British membership of the euro – a stance he later said was mistaken. From 2000 to 2006 he was Vice-Chairman of

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...

Europe. He lectures part-time at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

, where in 2010 he delivered three lectures on "Economics after the Crisis", later published by MIT Press as a book under that title: this criticised conventional wisdom that the object of policy should be to maximise GDP, that the way to do this is to promote freer markets, and that inequality is an acceptable price for growth. In 2002, he chaired a UK government enquiry into pensions. In 2007, he succeeded Frances Cairncross as Chairman of the

Economic and Social Research Council The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides fund ...

and Baroness Jay as Chair of the

Overseas Development Institute ODI (formerly the 'Overseas Development Institute') is a global affairs think tank, founded in 1960. Its mission is "to inspire people to act on injustice and inequality through collaborative research and ideas that matter for people and the ...

's Council. In 2008 his ''Building a Low-carbon Economy'' (co-written with David Kennedy) was published, and the same year Turner was appointed as first Chairman of the British Government's newly established

. He stepped down from this position in Spring 2012. On 29 May 2008, it was announced that he would take over as Chairman of the

. He took up this post on 20 September 2008 for a five-year term to succeed

Callum McCarthy Sir Callum McCarthy (born 29 February 1944) is the former chairman of the Financial Services Authority. He is also the former non-executive chairman of Promontory Financial Group's UK affiliate. Early life and education McCarthy attended Manchest ...

Financial Services Authority

Turner defended the actions of the regulator on the BBC's Andrew Marr show on 15 February 2009, saying that other regulatory bodies throughout the world, which varied in structure and lightness of regulatory touch, also failed to predict the economic collapse. He said that in line with other regulators the FSA had failed intellectually by focusing too much on processes and procedures rather than looking at the bigger economic picture. Asked why Sir James Crosby had been appointed deputy chairman when the FSA had said that his bank

HBOS HBOS plc was a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group, having been taken over in January 2009. It was the holding company for Bank of Scotland plc, which operated the Ba ...

was using risky lending practices, Lord Turner said that they had files on almost every financial institution indicating a degree of risk. He did not apologise for the actions of the FSA, which had presided over the near-total collapse of several major banks, and accepted that it had not foreseen the consequences for Lloyds Bank of its merger with the ailing HBOS in September 2008. Despite controversy over bonuses for employees of Lloyds, he sought to justify bonuses averaging 15 per cent for his own 2,500 staff, arguing "If you're saying we should now cut the bonuses f FSA employees you're saying you should cut their pay by 15%". In August 2009 in an interview for ''

Prospect Prospect may refer to: General * Prospect (marketing), a marketing term describing a potential customer * Prospect (sports), any player whose rights are owned by a professional team, but who has yet to play a game for the team * Prospect (minin ...

'' magazine he supported the idea of new global taxes on financial transactions (the "

Tobin tax A Tobin tax was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. It was suggested by James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Tobin's tax was originally intended to pen ...

"), warning that a "swollen" financial sector paying excessive salaries had grown too big for society.

Institute for New Economic Thinking

In April 2013, it was announced that Lord Turner would be joining

George Soros George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...

' economic think tank, the

Institute for New Economic Thinking The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) is a New York City–based nonprofit think tank. It was founded in October 2009 as a result of the 2007–2012 global financial crisis, and runs a variety of affiliated programs at major universiti ...

, as a senior research fellow in its London offices. From that, he wrote a book "Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance" Princeton University Press, 2016

Global Apollo Programme

In 2015, he was co-author of the report that launched the

Global Apollo Programme The Global Apollo Programme was a historic call for a major global science and economics research programme to make Renewable energy, carbon-free Base load power plant, baseload electricity less costly than Fossil fuel power station, electricity fro ...

, which calls for developed nations to commit to spending 0.02% of their GDP for 10 years, to fund co-ordinated research to make carbon-free baseload electricity less costly than electricity from coal by the year 2025.

Honoured

On 7 September 2005 he was created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

as Baron Turner of Ecchinswell, of

Ecchinswell Ecchinswell is a village in the Basingstoke and Deane district of Hampshire, England. Geography Watership Down, location of Richard Adams' novel of the same name, is just south of Ecchinswell. Ladle Hill on Great Litchfield Down, also lies to th ...

in the

County of Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshir ...

, awarded in recognition of his public service to the nation (he has a cottage in Ecchinswell). He sits as a

crossbencher A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and oppositi ...

. In 2016 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.

Personal life

In 1985 he married Orna Ní Chionna, whom he met at McKinsey. She comes from Ireland, and was born c. 1956. She wa
Chair
of the council of the

Soil Association The Soil Association is a British registered charity. The organisation activities include campaigning – against intensive farming, for local purchasing and public education on nutrition – and certification of organic foods. It was establ ...

and a

non-executive director A non-executive director (abbreviated to non-exec, NED or NXD), independent director or external director is a member of the board of directors of a corporation, such as a company, cooperative or non-government organization, but not a member of th ...

Northern Foods Northern Foods is a British food manufacturer headquartered in Wakefield, England. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the original FTSE 100 Index. The company is credited, together with Marks & Spencer, ...

. Orna is a non-executive director of Royal Mail plc.

References

External links

FSA – Official Biography

House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 12 October 2005
''Times'' profile 4 December 2005

''Times'' article 25 November 2005

''Guardian'' profile 25 November 2005

Adair Turner Biography

Lord Turner to join Soros-funded think tank (BBC News , Business)

BBC Radio 4 Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Adair 1955 births Living people People from Crawley Businesspeople from Ipswich People educated at Glenalmond College People educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge British business writers McKinsey & Company people Turner of Ecchinswell Crossbench life peers Presidents of the Cambridge Union Social Democratic Party (UK) politicians Global Apollo Programme Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society Institute for New Economic Thinking Life peers created by Elizabeth II