Lord Gerry Grimstone serves as Chairman of the Fund. Lord Grimstone served as the U.K.’s Minister for Investment from 2020-2022 responsible for inward investment into the U.K. and for the U.K.’s relationships with major global investors.
Before entering politics, Lord Grimstone had an extensive business career including serving on boards in the Gulf, India and China. He is the immediate past Chairman of Barclays Bank plc and also of Standard Life Aberdeen (now known as abrdn), the U.K.’s largest savings and investments business. From 2012-2015, Lord Grimstone served as the Chairman of TheCityUK, the representative body for the financial and professional services industry in the U.K. He was a member of HM Treasury’s Financial Services Trade and Investment Board.
In the Gulf, Lord Grimstone was the Board Adviser to the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. He also sat on the Board of Investcorp and chaired Aberdeen Standard Investcorp Infrastructure Partners, which invests in social and core infrastructure projects in the GCC countries. In Saudi Arabia, he led, for the Prime Minister and the Crown Prince, the private sector group advising the Kingdom on corporatization and privatization. He presently co-chairs the U.K.-Oman Strategic Advisory Group for Her Majesty’s Government and serves on Equilibrium Gulf’s International Advisory Board which advises the Bahraini Economic Development Board on various matters.
Lord Grimstone was previously a senior investment banker at Schroders and ran major businesses in London, New York and Asia Pacific. He specialized in mergers and acquisitions and capital raising for major companies worldwide. Prior to that, he was an official in HM Treasury where he was responsible for privatization and policy toward state-owned enterprises.
He is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford where he received a degree in chemistry.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel was knighted in 2014 for public service, particularly to Defense and Business.