Alex Chisholm (born 2 January 1968) is a British civil servant and regulator, who has served as

Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary The Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office, known informally as the Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary, is the second-most senior civil servant of the Cabinet Office. It was conventionally joined with the positions of Cabinet ...

and the

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if ...

of the United Kingdom's Civil Service since April 2020. He was previously the permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from September 2016 to April 2020 and permanent secretary at the Department for Energy and Climate Change during 2016. Chisholm was previously the chief executive of the United Kingdom's

Competition and Markets Authority The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...

and chair of the Irish

Commission for Communications Regulation The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) ( ga, An Coimisiún um Rialáil Cumarsáide) is the general communications regulator for Ireland, covering almost all possible types of communications. Founded on 1 December 2002, ComReg too ...

, and has held senior positions in the media, technology and e-commerce industries.

Early life and education

Alex Chisholm was born on 2 January 1968 in London to parents Ian Duncan Chisholm and Annabel Chisholm. His father was a consultant psychiatrist and his mother was a daughter of James Bryan George Hennessy, 2nd Baron Windlesham. He was educated at Downside School before studying history at Merton College, Oxford and a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...

degree at

INSEAD INSEAD, a contraction of "Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires" () is a non-profit business school that maintains campuses in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, UAE), and North America (San ...

.Department for Business, Innovation & Skill
press release
8 January 2013.

Early career

Chisholm began work as a civil servant in 1990, working at the Department of Trade and Industry and Office of Fair Trading (OFT) until 1997. He specialised in competition policy and the media, communications and financial services sectors. He then worked for three years for Pearson plc and the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

, before spending some years working for technology companies, Inc and Ecceleration Ltd. He also founded ran Heritage Bulbs, a company specialising in the provision of rare and historic bulbs. In 2007 Chisholm was appointed as a commissioner of the

in Ireland, becoming its chair in February 2010. He left the role to become the first chief executive of the

in the United Kingdom, with his appointment announced on 8 January 2013. The Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) was formally launched on 1 October 2013 and became fully operational on 1 April 2014. It brought together the most of the responsibilities of the former OFT and the former Competition Commission. Chisholm, after taking up his post, was responsible for merging these two bodies and streamlining their operations. In 2014, the CMA began an inquiry into the banking sector, which was opposed by major banks. The authority found that HSBC and

First Trust Bank AIB (NI) (formerly known as First Trust Bank) is a commercial bank in Northern Ireland that is part of Allied Irish Banks's UK subsidiary AIB Group (UK) plc. It is one of the Big Four banks in Ireland. The bank was created in 1991 when '' TSB ...

had broken competition rules. During a talk to the

Institute of Directors The Institute of Directors (IoD) is a British professional organisation for company directors, senior business leaders and entrepreneurs. It is the UK's longest running organisation for professional leaders, having been founded in 1903 and incor ...

, he defended the existence of regulators because "some market participants can ruin it for everybody" and that Bitcoin provided "welcome competition". In 2015, Chisholm wrote in a

article that proposed taxi regulations by Transport for London, following protests against ride-sharing firm

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), packa ...

, would "artificially restrict competition". In 2016 he announced a CMA report that advocated abolishing passenger rail franchising to allow different companies to run services on the same routes.

Permanent secretary roles

Chisholm was appointed as permanent secretary to the

Department of Energy and Climate Change The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom created on 3 October 2008, by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take over some of the functions related to energy of the Department for Busin ...

(DECC) in 2016, and continued as permanent secretary for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) after it was created nine days later in September 2016 by merging DECC and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. His appointment was criticised by Stephen Fitzpatrick, the founder of

OVO Energy OVO Energy is a major energy supplier based in Bristol, England. It was founded by Stephen Fitzpatrick and began trading energy in September 2009, buying and selling electricity and gas to supply domestic properties throughout the UK. By Ju ...

, who said that a CMA inquiry into the energy industry that was run while he was chair was "subjected to lobbying from the big six" that resulted in reforms that ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' described as "watered down". The review opposed the introduction of energy price caps, which BEIS introduced in 2019 while Chisholm was its permanent secretary. In April 2020 he was appointed as chief operating officer of the civil service and

, succeeding John Manzoni who had served as chief executive of the civil service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary. The role, as the civil service's "second in command", includes leading reform of the civil service and advising on the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. He began the new role on 14 April 2020.

Personal life

Chisholm married Eliza Pakenham, daughter of Thomas Pakenham and granddaughter of

Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, 1st Baron Pakenham, Baron Pakenham of Cowley, (5 December 1905 – 3 August 2001), known to his family as Frank Longford and styled Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician and ...

, in 1993. They have three sons and live in London. He has been a trustee of Breadline Africa, an international charity, since 2003, and served as its deputy chair.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chisholm, Alex 1968 births Living people Alumni of Merton College, Oxford INSEAD alumni British civil servants Irish civil servants 20th-century British civil servants 21st-century Irish civil servants People educated at Downside School