Andrew Witty
Aged 46, Mr Witty is the youthful CEO of multinational pharmaceuticals company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). He took on the role of lead non-executive director at BIS because “in these challenging economic times, I think it’s important that the private sector steps up and plays its role in society,” he tells CSW. “I’m really looking forward to playing my role in providing advice and support.”

Witty has yet to chair a meeting, having only taken on the role on 1 January. However, he has already been in contact with permanent secretary of the department, Martin Donnelly, who describes him as “very straightforward, very easy to deal with, and very professional”.
Witty studied economics at the University of Nottingham and then started work at GSK, although he initially wanted to work as an official in the European Union. He will speak for the business community on the board – but, in order to avoid a conflict of interest, is able to neither view any papers nor contribute to any discussions specifically relating to pharmaceuticals.

Witty is married with two children and enjoys running in his spare time.

Professor Julia King
A departmental non-executive director since 2008, Professor Julia King started out in the then-Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and stayed on when the department merged with the business department to form BIS. The experience has given her a clear idea of what being a non-exec entails: “It’s to act as a critical friend; bring examples of best practice; and remind the board how their work is being perceived from outside,” she tells CSW.

In particular, King provides the voice of the universities sector on the BIS board: she is vice-chancellor of Aston University. She thinks there are parallels in reforming the department and the reforms needed in her own university – for example, the need to move away from a “tendency to work by committee”. She also believes that teams within the department should be able to act with more autonomy, and accountability should be “passed down to team members rather than everything reporting up”.

King started her career as a materials scientist at Cambridge University and then worked in business for Rolls-Royce, eventually becoming the engineering director in the marine division. Her hobbies, like her work, involve research: she is interested in low-carbon transport, and is reading two books – one on innovation and the other on “how to be wrong”. The latter contains advice on how to tackle the problems that can be caused when decisions have unforeseen consequences or situations change: “I bought it on the basis that, for all of us in senior positions, ‘learning to be wrong’ is quite important, because you do need to take decisions on the basis of imperfect information,” she says.

Brian Woods-Scawen
In the last few years, Dr Brian Woods-Scawen has been busy keeping an eye on a range of organisations as a non-executive director – most of them in the public sector. A chartered accountant by trade, he has been on the board of the government’s business department since 2004.

Woods-Scawen believes that it is particularly important for BIS to listen to outside organisations, because much of its policy execution is performed by independent bodies such as universities. A voice of caution, Woods-Scawen says he provides “a constant reminder of the risks involved in operating at a fast pace, particularly when you don’t have second chances”.

The speed of reform has particularly affected higher education – an area Woods-Scawen knows well, thanks to his experience as treasurer of Warwick University. He doesn’t believe that raising tuition fees was the wrong thing to do, but warns that “we haven’t got evidence on what the impact is going to be… in terms of student demand”, adding that “they’re going to be customers in a way they haven’t been before”.

Outside the office, Woods-Scawen is a keen chef: he doesn’t have a signature dish, he says, but particularly enjoys cooking food with a French influence. He likes to travel, annually visiting Venice, and has an affinity for India; his family lived there for 250 years.

Written by Civil Service World