Mr Robert Gillespie, BA, ACA

Robert Gillespie is Director General of The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, a position that he took up in September 2010 and which it is expected he will hold until 2013.  Robert is also Chairman of the Board of Somerset House Trust and Chairman of the Boat Race Company Limited, the organisation that manages the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.  He is a member of the Stop Organised Abuse Board of the NSPCC and was a Vice-President of Save The Children from 2004-2009.

Following graduation from Durham with a BA degree in Economics in 1977 (Grey College) Robert qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in 1980. He joined S G Warburg in 1981 and was successively appointed Managing Director responsible for the Advisory Business of S G Warburg and Co Inc, New York from 1989 to 1993; Head of UK Corporate Finance, SBC Warburg, London from 1995-1997, Head of European Corporate Finance, Warburg Dillon Read 1997-1999 and Joint Global Head of Corporate Finance, UBS Warburg from 1999-2005. In 2004 he was appointed CEO of the UBS Investment Bank, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) a post he held until 2006.  In 2005 he was also appointed Vice-Chairman of UBS Investment Bank.  Robert retired from UBS Investment Bank in 2008.

Robert was a member of the University's 175th Anniversary Campaign Executive Committee from its inception.  He is an active supporter of sport in the University having been involved in the development of the University rowing club and of University sport more generally through the Friends of Durham Sport Steering Group since 2000.

Robert is the Chair of University Council having joined as a lay member in August 2007.  He chairs the Nominations Committee and is an ex-officio member of Remuneration Committee and Finance and General Purposes Committee.