Archie Norman

Archie Norman is recognised as one of Britain’s leading businessmen.

With a long term track record of business change and value creation, Archie Norman has led transformations of major British businesses, served on the Boards of several others, and built over time very strong management teams who are now in leading positions in several major British companies.

Archie has also served as a Member of Parliament for eight years and worked at the highest level in British politics.

Archie was a member of a three strong team that established and built Kingfisher plc in the 1980s to become Britain’s leading general merchandise retailer.

In 1991 he moved to ASDA to lead the turnaround as Chief Executive.

Over the subsequent eight years the business was transformed into the second largest supermarket group before being sold to Wal-Mart for an eight times multiple of the starting share price.

Archie acquired Energis, Britain’s third largest telecoms business, on behalf of the creditor banks and over three years refocused and rebuilt the business before agreeing a sale to Cable and Wireless for double the original enterprise value.

Archie has also served for eight years as a Member of Parliament, including as Chief Executive of the Conservative Party and as a leading member of the Shadow Cabinet.

He led the first stages of the reform of the Conservative Party after the 1997 electoral defeat and rose to become the opposite number to the Deputy Prime Minister. Subsequently he founded the well known think tank “Policy Exchange”.

In November 2007 he was appointed Deputy Chairman of Coles Group, the second largest retailer in Australia, and has played a leading role in setting the strategy and recruiting the team for potentially the largest turnaround project in global retailing. He is an advisor to the Board of Wesfarmers Limited.

Archie has set up a management partnership, Aurigo Management Partners, which seeks to acquire under performing, distressed, or unfashionable businesses which are capable of responding to the management intensive approach. In June 2007 Aurigo acquired HSS, the UK’s second largest equipment hire business.

Between 2010 and 2016, Archie Norman was Chairman of ITV Plc.

In 2013 Archie Norman was appointed as London Chairman of Lazard.

In May 2017, it was announced Norman would succeed Robert Swannell as chairman of Marks & Spencer in September 2017.

Archie has served as a non-executive director on the Board of a number companies including British Rail, Railtrack and Geest. He was previously the youngest partner at McKinsey and Co and has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA from Cambridge University.

Both in business and politics, Archie Norman’s rise has been meteoric, and is now recognized as one of the most respected business leaders in the U.K.

He is an outstanding conference speaker on the topics of leadership, change, turnarounds, retail and customer service.