Advisory Board
The Rt. Hon Sir Jeremy Hanley KCMG
Hans-Wilmar von Stockhausen
General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie GCB OBE
Sir Kieran Prendergast KCVO, CMG
Brian Raper
Michael McIntyre
The Rt. Hon Sir Jeremy Hanley KCMG
A Chartered Accountant, Sir Jeremy has carried on a wide-ranging commercial life since retiring from politics in 1997. Previously he was Member of Parliament for Richmond & Barnes from 1983-97, and a Government Minister for over 7 years. His posts included: Cabinet Minister without Portfolio whilst Chairman of the Conservative Party, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (responsible for Hong Kong and the Middle East), Minister of State for the Armed Forces at the Ministry of Defence, and Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as Minister for Health & Social Services, Minister for Agriculture and for Education and Political Development. He was selected for "Great Parliamentary Speeches 1978-91".
He qualified as an FCA (1969) and FCIS (1980) and was Senior Lecturer in Law with the Financial Training Co. for 21 years, becoming Deputy Chairman. He now serves on the Boards of a number of quoted and unquoted companies, including currently ITE Group plc, GTECH Holdings Corpn Inc (for both of which he is Chairman of the Audit Committee), and Nymex Europe Ltd. Having led 17 high level trade missions in recent years, he is a consultant for trade in the Middle East and Asia, and a director of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce and Vice-President of the British Iranian Chamber.
He has been a Privy Counsellor since 1994 and a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael & St George since 1997. He is a Freeman of the City of London and Master of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Accountants.
He is married to Verna and has 3 children (and 1 grandson). He was educated at Rugby School and his parents were the actors Jimmy Hanley and Dinah Sheridan.
Hans-Wilmar von Stockhausen
Hans-Wilmar spent most of his business life at Munich Reinsurance Company (Munich Re), Munich, Germany, the last 14 years prior to retirement as a member of its Management Board. He joined Munich Re in 1964 and, after several months in France and Australia, a year with a Group-subsidiary in Canada, and several years of involvement in Munich Re's Africa, Near East and Turkey Department, played a major part in setting up and developing Munich Re's African account with, as a consequence, substantial travel commitments to practically all African countries. Subsequently he was responsible, based, however, in Munich, for another Group-subsidiary, Munich Re of Africa, Johannesburg, with a network of its own subsidiaries across Africa. He served as a Director of that company until retirement. After joining Munich Re's main board Hans-Wilmar took over technical responsibility for a sector of reinsurance business in Germany as well as overall marketing and account management responsibility for France, the Benelux, Italy, the Balkans, South-Eastern Europe (including Greece and Turkey) and Eastern Europe, including, after 1990, all countries of the former Soviet Union. He retired July 2002 after 39 years with Munich Re.
His activities at Munich Re brought with them various Group-internal directorships/chairmanships ( Munich Re Italia, Milan, Italy; New Re/Nouvelle Re, Geneva, Switzerland; Münchner Hagel, München ), as well as external ones ( Allgemeine Kredit, Mainz, Germany; Hestia, Sopot, Poland; Alte Leipziger Europa Holding, Oberursel, Germany ) and several advisory functions, principally in France.
His present activities are twofold. Besides pursuing a Masters studies program of Medieval History at LMU-University of Munich, Hans-Wilmar is on the Advisory Board of two Munich based companies, GCP-Golding Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Araia, a consulting firm, specialized in procurement and out-sourcing.
Hans-Wilmar was educated in Vienna, Austria, Santa-Clara, California, and Paris, France. He attended a classical grammar school in Vienna, spent a year in the USA as an AFS-American Field Service Exchange student, and obtained a Law Doctorate at Vienna University and an MBA at INSEAD, the European Institute of Business Administration, Fontainebleau, France.
Besides German, he speaks English, French and Italian.
Hans-Wilmar has been married to Monika for over 35 years and has two daughters.
General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie GCB OBE
John Jeremy Mackenzie was born in Nairobi, Kenya on 11 February 1941. He was commissioned into the Queen’s Own Highlanders in July 1961 and commanded the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Highlanders in Hong Kong in 1980-1981 and was awarded the OBE. In 1984 he commanded the 12th Armoured Brigade in West Germany and was subsequently promoted to Major General as Commandant of the Staff College and was next appointed Commander 4th Armour Division in West Germany. From there he was promoted Lieutenant General, was knighted (KCB) and was appointed Commander 1st British Corps. Subsequently he formed the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, and was its first Commander from 1991-1994.
He was promoted full General in 1994 in the post of Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe and served three Supreme Capital Allied Commanders over four years, having special responsibility for the Partnership for Peace Programme involving 27 nations of Central and Eastern Europe, the Expansion of NATO, and the force generation of NATO forces in the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and latterly Kosovo. He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath (GCB) in 1999, having previously been awarded the US Legion of Merit twice in 1997 and 1999, the Czech Republic’s Cross of Merit First Class, the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 1998, and the Order of Madara Horseman First Class of Bulgaria in 1999. In 2003 he was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit of Slovenia. He was an Aide de Camp to Her Majesty the Queen from 1992 to 1996.
He retired from the Army in 1999 and took up the post of Governor of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in August 1999. He is the UK MoD Advisor to the Bulgarian and Albanian Governments on the reform programmes of their Armed Forces. He is a Director of SIRVA Plc since 2003 (Chairman of the Governance Committee), and Director of Selenia Communications Ltd since 2004.
Sir Kieran Prendergast KCVO, CMG
After a career of more than 30 years in HM Diplomatic service, Sir Kieran Prendergast spent eight and a half years as Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs at the United Nations in New York. As such he was Secretary-General Kofi Annan's principal adviser on the prevention, containment and resolution of conflict, as well as on post-conflict peace building. During this period he had to deal with issues as varied as DRC, East Timor, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Guatemala, Israel/Palestine and Iraq, not to mention UN policy on counter-terrorism and the challenges of collective security..
Earlier, in his diplomatic career Kieran Prendergast was a Private Secretary to two Foreign Secretaries, Deputy Head of Mission in Tel Aviv for four years, head of Southern African department in the FCO during the critical period leading up to independence for Namibia and the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, high commissioner successively to Zimbabwe and Kenya, and ambassador to Turkey. He was appointed CMG in 1990 and KCVO in 1991.
Kieran Prendergast married Joan Reynolds in 1967. They have four children and lived happily ever after. He nowadays shoots rarely but still enjoys walking, reading and wine as much as ever.
Sir Kieran speaks Turkish, French and smatterings of other languages. He visits Turkey regularly and enjoys exotic places.
Brian Raper
Brian has been in the Textile Manufacturing Industry for over 40 years. He is experienced in all areas of Manufacture and has been at Production and Managing Director levels for over 30 years. This period includes being the Managing Director of three Private Limited Companies and one PLC reporting quarterly to the Stock Exchange.
From 1960 – 1962 Brian worked at Isaac Holden & Sons Ltd, spending considerable time at their factory in Jagatdal (12 miles upstream from Calcutta, India), building and installing new machinery. He also spent time in Australia visiting wool suppliers in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. 1962 he joined John Haggas Ltd, becoming their Production Manager in 1966, responsible for the daily running of the factory. John Haggas Ltd was floated at 7s/6p per share, valuing the company at £750,000. Over the next 11 years he was closely involved in the development of the business in a period of continuous growth, at the end of which, in 1979, the business was sold to Dawson International in an agreed take-over, for £25 million. This included a cash reserve of £13 million. During these 11 years he employed over 600 people, 560 of which were production operators. The factory ran continuously, 7 days a week and 47 weeks in the year, producing over 6,500 tons of worsted weaving and knitting yarn annually.
From 1977 – 1982, as well as being a Director of John Haggas / Dawson International PLC, he also became the Managing Director of Aireworth Textiles Ltd and Raper Textiles Ltd (1977 – 1986). In 1986 Brian set up BSR Textiles which ran successfully until 1990 when he wound it down.
In 1990 Brian became a Director of John Sheards Ltd and represented 16 Textile Machinery Manufacturers, and 8 ‘Consumables’ Manufacturers in the UK and Ireland. 13 of the companies were German, 4 Spanish, 3 Italian, 2 American, and one each from Belgium and Switzerland. All the Companies are leaders in their field, and include Volkmann (Saurer Group), Suessen (Rieter Group), Ph.Welker, Coatema, Electro-Jet, Forte Technology and Uster Technologies AG. The ‘consumables’ companies included Accotex (Daytex), Reiners & Fürst, Reseda Binder, Tigges, and Gieseken. Brian was a Governor of Aysgarth School for 15 years and was Chairman of the Governors for 5 years.
Currently Brian works as an Independent Global Textile and Manufacturing Consultant and lives in Yorkshire.
Michael McIntyre
Michael’s career was spent with The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation which he served for 43 years. He joined HSBC in London in 1959 and, after nearly 5 years of training, was posted to Hong Kong. Various management positions followed, firstly in Sabah, East Malaysia, then Hong Kong, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, Hong Kong and ending as CEO of The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in the United Kingdom. He then set up a small unit under the auspices of HSBC’s Private Bank to look after Asian customers investing in the UK.
During his time with HSBC, he became a Director of many internal companies and was Chairman of the UK Pension Fund. He was Honorary Treasurer of The Great Britain China Centre in London and the St John Ambulance Association in Hong Kong. He has sat on the London committees of various associations representing Asian communities and is a member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.
Michael was educated at Marlborough College. He has been married to Jill for 36 years and has a son and daughter. He divides his time between homes in London and Wiltshire.