Dame Helen Anne Alexander DBE (10 February 1957 – 5 August 2017) was a British businesswoman. She served as the chairman of

UBM plc UBM plc was a British business-to-business (B2B) events organiser headquartered in London, England, before its acquisition by Informa in 2018. It had a long history as a multinational media company. Its main focus was on B2B events, but its p ...

. She had an MA degree from

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

degree from

INSEAD INSEAD ( ; French: ''Institut européen d'administration des affaires'') is a non-profit business school with locations in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, UAE) and North America (San Francisco, USA ...

, and in 2016 was awarded the

Legion d'Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was ...

. She was Chancellor of the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

from 2011 to 2017.

Early life

Alexander was born in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

to Bernard Alexander, a British lawyer who worked for the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, l ...

, and Tania Benckendorff. Her mother was Russian (with roots in

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

) and her maternal grandmother was

Moura Budberg Maria Ignatievna von Budberg-Bönninghausen (, ''Maria (Moura) Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg'', née Zakrevskaya; February 1892 – 1 November 1974), also known as Countess von Benckendorff and Baroness von Budberg, was a Russian ...

, adventuress, muse, and suspected

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

. Through her, Helen Alexander was related to

Nick Clegg Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British retired politician and media executive who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015 and as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015. H ...

, sometime Deputy Prime Minister, whose paternal grandmother, Kira von Engelhardt, Baroness von Smolensk, was Budberg's niece. Alexander was educated at

St Paul's Girls' School St Paul's Girls' School is a private day school for girls, aged 11 to 18, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in west London, England. The school is included in The Schools Index as one of the world's 150 best private schools and among top ...

in London. She earned a degree in geography from

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...

in 1978 and graduated from

in 1984.

Career

She began a career in publishing at

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

. She joined the

Economist Group The Economist Newspaper Limited (commonly The Economist Group) is a British media company headquartered in London, England. It is best known as publisher of ''The Economist'' newspaper and its sister lifestyle magazine, ''1843 (magazine), 1843'' ...

as a marketing executive in 1985. From 1997 to 2008 she was chief executive of the Economist Group, during which time profits greatly increased and the circulation of ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'' more than doubled. In 2004 she was appointed CBE for services to publishing. Alexander's numerous directorships included

Huawei Technologies Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology companyin Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include telecommunications equipme ...

Esure Esure Group plc (stylised as ''esure'') is an Internet and telephone based insurance company based in Reigate, Surrey, England. It also has offices in Manchester and Glasgow. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acqui ...

Group Holdings,

Rolls-Royce Group Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is a British multinational aerospace and defence company incorporated in February 2011. The company owns Rolls-Royce, a business established in 1904 which today designs, manufactures and distributes power systems for ...

Incisive Media Incisive Media is a Business-to-business financial company. It is based in London, England. History Incisive Media is a business-to-business (B2B) financial company founded by Tim Weller, in 1994 with the launch of '' Investment Week''. It ac ...

Thomson-Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational content-driven technology conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 19 Duncan Street there. Thomson Reuters was creat ...

and

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

. In 2011, she was the first female president of the

Confederation of British Industry The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is a British business interest group, which says it represents 190,000 businesses. The CBI has been described by the ''Financial Times'' as "Britain's biggest business lobby group". Incorporated by roy ...

(CBI) and was appointed DBE for services to business. She was a trustee of Sir

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

World Wide Web Foundation The World Wide Web Foundation, also known as the Web Foundation, was a US-based international nonprofit organization advocating for a free and open web for everyone. It was cofounded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and ...

, and was chairman of the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

from January 2010 until 31 December 2015. Since September 2011 she had been Chancellor of the

, the first woman in that role. Her appointment at Southampton attracted some criticism from the student body over Alexander's role at Rolls-Royce, given the company's role in the arms trade. She was an honorary fellow of

, and sat on the board of the

Said Business School Said can refer to: * Speech, or the act of speaking * Saʽid, a male Arabic given name * Said (honorific), a honorific in Islamic culture * Said, Iran (disambiguation), multiple places in Iran * Port Said, a city in Egypt * Saïd Business Scho ...

, University of Oxford.

Personal life

Alexander spoke fluent French. In 1985, she married media executive Tim Suter; they had three children, including actor

Leo Suter Leo Suter (born 26 September 1993) is an English actor. His credits include '' Bad Education'' (2012), ''Victoria'' (2017), ''Ransom'' (2017), ''Clique'' (2018), '' Beecham House'' (2019), ''Sanditon'' (2019), ''Intelligence'' (2020), '' The Libe ...

. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and died three years later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, Helen 1957 births 2017 deaths Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford British businesspeople Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford INSEAD alumni British recipients of the Legion of Honour Chancellors of the University of Southampton People educated at St Paul's Girls' School British people of Estonian descent British people of Russian descent Deaths from cancer in England Place of death missing Businesspeople from Geneva