South West RDA: Board Members

John Savage CBE

John Savage has a broad range of business experience gained in hands-on management activity over a period of more than 40 years. As Managing Director of six ANG businesses he has cadded to his range of experience so that it now includes manufacturing processes, gravure and flexography printing, heavy goods vehicle engineering and operations, port and rail terminal operations, public service vehicle operation, engineering manufacturing, motion picture production, property development, stone masonry, and large scale catering.

In September 2004 he became Executive Chairman of Business West, the new joint operating company of the Chamber and Business Link West. He is dedicated to, and leads the organisation in, the promotion of partnership between local government, industry and commerce in order to promote the position of Bristol and its neighbouring communities as a vibrant and vital European city region in the twenty-first century.

He is passionately concerned about the failure of the British educational system to produce opportunities for a large swathe of underprivileged young people from successive generations and strives to engineer change to redress this through his chairmanship of, both, the Learning and Skills Council and the Bristol 14 to 19 Campus and as a board member of Connexions West of England.

He was awarded the CBE for services to Business and Regeneration in the 2006 New Year Honours List. He was the High Sheriff of Bristol for 2002/3. The University of the West of England awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Education in November 2003. The University of Bristol awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in July 2005. He is a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

South West Regional Development Agency

Board Members

John Savage CBE