Simon Walker

Simon Walker became Director General of the Institute of Director in October 2011.

Previously he was Chief Executive of the BVCA, the organisation that represents British private equity and venture capital from October 2007.

Between 2003 and 2007 Simon worked at Reuters as Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing. He was Communications Secretary to HM The Queen at Buckingham Palace from 2000 to 2003. Earlier he served as Director of Corporate Affairs at British Airways and a non-executive director of Comair Ltd (South Africa). From 1996-1997 Simon worked as a special adviser in the Prime Ministers Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street.

Simon was a partner at Brunswick, the public relations group, and Director of European Public Affairs for Hill & Knowlton in Brussels. He has been a member of the Better Regulation Commission, a Trustee of The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Trust, the New Zealand-UK Link Association, and the UK-US Jamestown Committee. He is a governor for the environmental foundation, The Hillary Summit, a Council Member of the European Policy Forum and a member of the Parliamentary Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Public Engagement.

Simon was born in South Africa, and has worked as a journalist and consultant in New Zealand, Belgium and the UK. He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford Union. He was a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. He is married with two children.