David Pitt-Watson
David Pitt-Watson is the founder and Chair of Hermes Equity Ownership Service, the largest shareholder stewardship programme in the world. He was formerly head of all Hermes shareholder activist activities. He has enjoyed a varied business career, both as a prominent City investor and as a senior strategic advisor. He is also a Trustee of Oxfam.
Between 1997 and 1999 he was Assistant General Secretary of the Labour Party. He has advised leading politicians on issues of industrial policy and organisation for over 20 years. He is a director of Oxford Analytica and a trustee of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). He has been a member of several policy commissions.
A graduate of Oxford and Stanford Universities, David was Visiting Professor at Cranfield University School of Management from 1990 to 1996. He is the author of The New Capitalists, published by Harvard, which describes how a “civil economy” can emerge in the economic sphere, mirroring civil society in the political sphere.
