Sir William Gennydd Thomas (born 1959) is a British businessman.

Early life and education

Born in 1959, Thomas is the son of Jack Thomas, a deputy

headteacher A head master, head instructor, bureaucrat, headmistress, head, chancellor, principal or school director (sometimes another title is used) is the teacher, staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school ...

, and his wife Hetty. He grew up in

Colne Colne () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, England. Located northeast of Nelson, north-east of Burnley, east of Preston and west of Leeds. The town should not be confused with the unrelated Colne Val ...

, where he attended

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

; he was then educated at St Theodore's Comprehensive School in

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

before completing his undergraduate education at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

;Bill Jacobs
"Colne's New Sir Bill Speaks of His 'Pride and Delight'"
''

The Lancashire Telegraph The ''Lancashire Telegraph'', formerly the ''Lancashire Evening Telegraph'', is a local tabloid newspaper distributed in East Lancashire, England. It is edited by Karl Holbrook. There are around twenty towns in the area, including Blackburn, ...

'', 8 January 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2021. he graduated with a

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. Thomas went on to complete an

MSc MSC may refer to: Computers * Message Sequence Chart * Microelectronics Support Centre of UK Rutherford Appleton Laboratory * MIDI Show Control * MSC Malaysia (formerly known as Multimedia Super Corridor) * USB mass storage device class (USB MSC ...

digital systems Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals. Digital electronic circuits are usually ...

Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June 1 ...

and an

MBA 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 accounti ...

from the

Cranfield School of Management Cranfield School of Management, established in 1967, is a business school that is part of Cranfield University in Bedfordshire, United Kingdom. It was ranked Top 10 in the UK and 34th in Europe in the Financial Times European Business Schools ...

. Edmund Conway
"Bill Thomas, Regional Executive Vice-President of EDS"
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', 8 January 2007, p. 4. Retrieved via

Nexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

on 13 April 2021.

Career

Thomas began his career working in

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

development at Marconi, before joining the US-based

IT services Information technology service management (ITSM) is the activities that are performed by an organization to design, build, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers. Differing from more technology-or ...

company

Electronic Data Systems Electronic all cash BSN acc: 1311729000110205 Data Systems (EDS) was an American multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Plano, Texas which was founded in 1962 by Ross Perot. The company was a subs ...

(EDS); he remained there for 25 years until the end of 2008,"William Gennydd Thomas 'Bill'"
''

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...

''. Retrieved 13 April 2021. during which time the company heavily expanded its presence in the UK. Initially recruited to work in its

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

division, Thomas eventually became head of the company's division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He served as the regional

vice-president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

from September 2000 to January 2003, the vice-president and general area manager for EMEA from January 2003 to December 2006, and the executive vice-president for the same region from December 2006 to December 2008. During this time, EDS held several major

public-sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infr ...

contracts for IT work in the UK; by 2007, it was the largest IT contractor for the

UK government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

. He gave evidence to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Public Accounts Committee in 2003 after an error during the rollout of a £168m contract relating to the administration of the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation ta ...

Tax Credits A tax credit is a tax incentive which allows certain taxpayers to subtract the amount of the credit they have accrued from the total they owe the state. It may also be a credit granted in recognition of taxes already paid or a form of state "disc ...

system temporarily left hundreds of thousands of people unable to receive Tax Credits. Following EDS's

takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to t ...

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

in August 2008, Thomas became HP's senior vice-president and

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

for the EMEA division; he remained in that role until December 2009. Since leaving EDS and HP, Thomas has been appointed to the

boards of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of several companies: GFI Software (since 2011),

Xchanging Xchanging is a business process and technology services provider and integrator, owned by DXC Technology, providing business services to the commercial insurance industry. In outsourcing, Xchanging will typically take over a customer's business ...

(2011–16),

Balfour Beatty Balfour Beatty plc () is an international infrastructure group based in the United Kingdom with capabilities in construction services, support services and infrastructure investments. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, Balfour Beatty works ac ...

(2013–14) and

The Co-Operative Bank The Co-operative Bank plc is a retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom, with its headquarters in Balloon Street, Manchester. The Co-operative Bank is the only UK high street bank with a customer-led Ethical Policy which is incorporat ...

(since 2013); he joined the board of

Spirent Communications Spirent Communications plc is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications testing company headquartered in Crawley, West Sussex, in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of t ...

in 2016 and has served as its

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

since 2017. He is also chairman of Node4 Holdings Ltd (since 2017) and of

Clarkson plc Clarkson PLC, often referred to simply as Clarksons, is a provider of shipping services, and is headquartered in London. In 2011, Lloyd's List described the company's shipbroking service as the "undisputed heavyweight of the shipbroking market". ...

(since 2019). Thomas has also been chair of the

Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity RNRMC (full name Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity) is a charity registered in England, Wales and Scotland. Its purpose is to support sailors, marines, and their families, including those from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Maritime Reserve ...

and has been an advisor to the Labour Party on issues of defence,

vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an ind ...

, business policy and the awarding of public-sector contracts to small- and medium-sized businesses. He was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in the

2020 New Year Honours The 2020 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebration ...

for "charitable and political service"."Honours and Awards"
''

The London Gazette ''The London Gazette'' is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are ...

'', 7 February 2020 (issue 62913), p. 2334. Retrieved 13 April 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Bill Living people 1959 births British businesspeople Alumni of the University of Leeds Alumni of Brunel University London Knights Bachelor