On Wednesday 24 January 2007 The Rt Hon Lord Hurd of Westwell CH CBE PC will address an exclusively Corporate and Institutional audience and special guests on "Key Strategic and Security Challenges for the World in 2007".
Lord Hurd retired as Foreign Secretary in July 1995 after a distinguished career in Government spanning sixteen years.
After positions as Minister of State in the Foreign Office and the Home Office, he served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1984 to 1985, Home Secretary from 1985 to 1989 and Foreign Secretary 1989 to 1995 in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, Lord Hurd obtained a First Class Honours Degree in History and was President of the Cambridge Union in 1952. After joining the Diplomatic Service, he went on to serve at the Foreign Office in Peking, New York (UN), and Rome. He ran Edward Heath’s private office from 1968 to 1970 and acted as his Political Secretary at 10 Downing Street from 1970 to 1974. He was MP for Mid-Oxfordshire (later Witney) from 1974 to 1997. He was created a Life Peer in 1997.
He was appointed Deputy Chairman of NatWest Markets and a main Board Director of NatWest Group in 1995, retiring from the Board in April 1999 and leaving the NatWest Group at the end of January 2000. In early 1998 he became Deputy Chairman of Coutts & Co. He was Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Hawkpoint Partners Limited from 1998 until 2001, and is now a Senior Adviser to the Company. He is Chairman of the German-British Forum and in November 2000 he was also appointed Chairman of CEDR (The Centre for Dispute Resolution).
Lord Hurd was Chairman of the Prison Reform Trust Charity from 1998 until January 2001, becoming Honorary President in October 2001. He was Chairman of British Invisibles from 1997 until April 2000. He was Chairman of the 1998 Booker Prize for Fiction. He became a Member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in February 1999, and a Member of the Appointments Commission in the summer of 2000. In September 1999 he was appointed as the High Steward of Westminster Abbey. He was appointed a President of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in September 2001.
His other pursuits include writing, walking and reading. His latest books are The Search for Peace (with the 1997 BBC TV Series), The Shape of Ice (a novel, 1998), Ten Minutes to Turn the Devil (a collection of short stories, 1999), and Image in the Water (a novel, 2001). His memoirs were published in October 2003. At present he is working on a biography of the life of Sir Robert Peel.
The meeting will take place at Arundel House, 13 -15 Arundel Street, Temple, London WC2R 3DX and will be off-the-record. Tea and coffee will be served from 10.00 and the talk will commence at 10.30 with a Q&A session from 11.15. The meeting will conclude at 12.00 noon.
If you would like to attend this event, please contact Lorna Williams at
corporateevents@iiss.org or telephone +44 (0)20 7395 9120.
