Occupation Business executive | Name Richard Haythornthwaite | |
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Full Name Richard Neil Haythornthwaite Known for Chairman of MasterCard & Centrica Alma mater The Queen's College, Oxford, MIT Sloan School of Management | ||
Richard Neil Haythornthwaite, known as Rick, (born December 1956) is a British business executive. He serves as the Chairman of MasterCard and Centrica.
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Early life
Richard Neil Haythornthwaite was born in December 1956. He graduated from The Queen's College, Oxford, where he received a bachelor of science degree in geology. He earned a master's degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management as a Sloan Fellow.
Career
Haythornthwaite was an executive for BP from 1978 to 1995. He served as General Manager of the Magnus oilfield, operated by BP Exploration, and later served as the President of BP Venezuela.
Haythornthwaite served as the Chief Executive for Europe and Asia and Group Chief Executive of Blue Circle Industries from 1997 to 2001, until its merger with Lafarge for GBP£3.1 billion in cash. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Invensys from 2001 to 2005. He was a partner of Star Capital Partners from 2006 to 2008. He also served as the Chairman of Network Rail.
Haythornthwaite has served as the Chairman of MasterCard since May 2006. He has also served as the Chairman of Centrica since January 2014.
Haythornthwaite served on the Boards of Directors of the Imperial Chemical Industries, Lafarge, Premier Oil and Land Securities.
Philanthropy
Haythornthwaite served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Southbank Centre for seven years standing down in January 2015. He also serves as member of the board of the World Wide Web Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Personal life
He was nicknamed "Slick Rick" in a single newspaper piece but the sobriquet has never been used since.