Who we are: The team

Sir Malcolm Williamson
Chairman

Appointed in January 2004. He is Deputy Chairman of Resolution plc, a main Board member of National Australia Bank and Chairman of National Australia Group Ltd. He is also a Board member of Group 4 Securicor, JP Morgan Cazenove Holdings and Signet Group plc. He also chairs the Advisory Board of Youth Business International.

Until March 2004, he was President and Chief Executive of Visa International. He held various positions with Standard Chartered Bank in the 1990s, including that of Group Chief Executive from 1993 to 1998. He also served as a member of the Post Office Board and was Managing Director of Girobank. He started his career with Barclays.

Arnab Banerji
Non-executive Director

Appointed in July 2004. He is the Partner responsible for emerging markets investments at Lansdowne Partners.

He was the Prime Minister's Senior Policy Adviser on Financial and City Affairs from October 2001 to April 2005 and was also appointed the Prime Minister's Economic Adviser in January 2004. He was previously Investment Chairman of the Foreign & Colonial Group. He served on the Advisory Council of the UK's Export Credit Guarantee Department for three and a half years from January 1997. He was also a member of the Morgan Stanley Capital International Advisory Board for four years. He is a trustee of the Ethox Foundation (The Oxford Foundation for Ethics and Communication in Health Care Practice).

Jonathan Kydd
Non-executive Director

Appointed in 1997. He is Chairman of the Best Practice and Development Committee. He is Professor of Agricultural Development Economics at Imperial College, London, a non-executive director of NR International Ltd, and a member of the Advisory Council of ECGD. He has extensive experience of Africa and the natural resources sector, together with a particular interest in the role of the private sector in development. His subject expertise is in agricultural policy analysis (especially links between the agricultural sector and the macro economy); economic liberalisation and structural adjustment; the role of the agricultural sector in the transition from central planning to the market; rural development and finance; food security and agricultural projects.

Fields Wicker-Miurin OBE
Non-executive Director

Appointed in November 2004. She is a co-founder of Leaders' Quest, an international not-for-profit organisation which connects and develops leaders round the world. She is also Chair of the DTI's Investment Committee and serves on the DTI's Executive and Strategy Boards. She is non-executive director of the Royal London Group, the Carnegie Group and Savills plc. She also serves on the Technology Advisory Council of Nasdaq. Previously she was Chief Financial Officer of the London Stock Exchange and was COO and Partner of Vesta Group, an international venture capital firm investing in early stage technology businesses in Europe.

Andrew Williams
Non-executive Director

Appointed in July 2003. He is a director of SVG Capital plc and Chief Executive Officer of its fund advisory business, SVG Advisers Ltd. He is a Visitor of the Ashmolean Museum.

He was formerly Managing Director of Schroder Ventures, having worked for Schroders plc since 1983. This included a period as co-head of equity capital markets and four years in Japan where he was head of corporate finance. He was also head of the Schroders Securities Asian divisions, with operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Indonesia.

Richard Laing
Chief Executive

Appointed as Chief Executive Officer in July 2004. He joined CDC in January 2000 as Finance Director and took up his role as Chief Executive following CDC's restructure in 2004. He is a trustee of the Overseas Development Institute, the UK's leading independent think tank on international development. Prior to this, he spent 15 years at De La Rue where he held a number of positions both in the UK and overseas, latterly as Group Finance Director.

He was also a non-executive Director of Camelot plc. He previously worked in agribusiness in developing countries, and at PricewaterhouseCoopers.