Paul Ashton Walker (born 17 May 1957) is a British businessman.

Education and early career

Walker graduated in Economics at

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

. Walker then began his career as a chartered accountant and auditor at Arthur Young.

Career at Sage

In 1984 Walker joined

Sage Group The Sage Group plc, commonly known as Sage, is a British multinational enterprise software company based in North Tyneside, England. As of 2017, it is the UK's second largest technology company, the world's third-largest supplier of enterpri ...

as a company accountant and then held the role of finance director from 1987 to 1994. In 1994, Walker was appointed chief executive of Sage. In April 2010, Sage announced that Walker, had indicated an interest in stepping down from his position, which he had held for 16 years. 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, Nik ...

'' reported that his departure would lead to speculation over Sage's mergers and acquisitions, which have been a key component to the group's growth in the past 20 years. In an interview with ''

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'' (fou ...

'', the CEO of Sage's UK business stated that: "Acquisitions are part of our DNA". Walker was one of the longest serving CEOs of a

FTSE 100 The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...

company, only exceeded by Sir

Martin Sorrell Sir Martin Stuart Sorrell (born 14 February 1945) is a British businessman and the founder of WPP plc, the world's largest advertising and PR group, both by revenue and the number of staff. Upon being ousted in April 2018, Sorrell was the longe ...

at WPP and

Tullow Oil Tullow Oil plc is a multinational oil and gas exploration company founded in Tullow, Ireland, with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. His ...

's Aidan Heavey. Walker left the company on 1 December 2010. Walker was succeeded by Guy Berruyer at Sage.

Later career

Walker has previously served on the boards of

Diageo plc Diageo plc () is a multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in London, England. It operates from 132 sites around the world. It was the world's largest distiller before being overtaken by Kweichow Moutai of China in 201 ...

and

MyTravel Group MyTravel Group plc was a British, global travel group headquartered in Rochdale, England. It was founded in 1972 as Airtours Group. The group included two in-house airlines, MyTravel Airways UK and MyTravel Airways Scandinavia, and various t ...

. In 2018 Walker was appointed as a director and chairman of

Ashtead Group Ashtead Group plc is a British industrial equipment rental company based in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange as a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History Ashtead was founded in 1947, in the village of Ashtead, Sur ...

. Walker is also non-executive chairman of

Halma plc Halma plc is a British global group of safety equipment companies that makes products for hazard detection and life protection based in Amersham, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock ex ...

and a non-executive director of

Experian Experian is an American–Irish multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company. Experian collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more t ...

and

Sophos Sophos Group plc is a British based security software and hardware company. Sophos develops products for communication endpoint, encryption, network security, email security, mobile security and unified threat management. Sophos is primarily ...

. Walker took on the role of chair of

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

's governing body in August 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Paul 1957 births Living people Sage Group people British businesspeople York University alumni Diageo people