Q&A with Howard Raingold and Sir Mark Richmond
The Pembroke College Corporate Partnership Programme was envisioned and established by Howard Raingold, Development Director from 1994 - 2007. Another key figure in the formation of the programme was Sir Mark Richmond, former Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University and, at the time, Head of Research and Development at Glaxo. He agreed to become Chairman of the Programme and was instrumental in making connections to companies in the UK and worldwide.
The Corporate Partnership Programme celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2021 and as part of the celebrations for our milestone anniversary, the Corporate Partnership Programme’s Director and current Pembroke College Development Director, Matthew Mellor, spoke to Howard Raingold and Sir Mark Richmond about the formation of the programme and their roles in establishing it.
Q: Why did you think the CPP was necessary?
Howard Raingold: I didn’t envisage at the beginning what it would be, but I thought that there might be an avenue for corporate gifts. Before joining the Pembroke Fellowship in 1994, I had worked for a while as Development Director at Lincoln College, Oxford, and the Rector there, Sir Maurice Shock, had mentioned to me one day that Lincoln Fellows had been instrumental in the second World War in the development of Penicillin that of course went on to save hundreds of thousands of lives and make millions for pharmaceutical companies - and so we had approached the R&D Chief of Glaxo, Paul Girolami (now Sir Paul Girolami), and their Chief Executive, Richard Sykes for a donation. I had thought there might be more scope for working with corporates and I resurrected the idea when I came to Pembroke in 1994.
Q: How did you start to make it happen at Pembroke?
Howard: What we recognise as the Corporate Partnership Programme conceptually began at Pembroke with the Senior Tutor, Clive Trebilcock, and me. I had discussed it with Clive and he liked the idea so we presented it to the College. There were many questions from the academic body about the role of William Pitt Fellows and worries about academic freedom, but we were able to answer these concerns and gain the unanimous support of the governing body.
Q: What would you say is the essence of the Corporate Partnership Programme?
Howard: The essence of the programme is to be of use to a large company in its relationship with Cambridge. The University then had no mechanism for dealing with outside business, and outside business was critical of the University because of this. All these intellectual and academic talents were there but business was not able to gain an entrée: they might have a connection with one person in one department, but that would be the most that would ever happen. So I thought, and Clive agreed, that we could develop a scheme in which we could be of use to a large company by facilitating engagement with the University. The College had a governing body of 50 - 60 people that could access all areas of the University and so we could help companies reach anywhere in Cambridge, and indeed beyond.
Sir Mark Richmond: Agreed, it was a means for helping companies who had some interest in what could be provided by the University.
Q: Once you got Governing body approval, what did you do next?
Howard: We needed to talk to industry decision-makers directly. Lord Jim Prior was the chair of the fundraising committee and a former Minister under Margaret Thatcher - he knew everybody! Le Gavroche was the ‘in’ restaurant in Mayfair and the idea was that Jim would invite his contacts to dinner there, including Richard Sykes from Glaxo and Alan Rudge from BT. I attended with Clive, Colin Gilbraith (then Bursar), Sir Roger Tomkys (then Master), and Professor Jan Maciejowski (Engineering) from Pembroke.
Matthew Mellor: I was there too, I remember taking notes.
Mark: Richard passed the invitation to dinner on to me – his view was that this was yet another College asking for money so he asked me to go and talk to them instead!
Matthew: Pembroke was not a wealthy College, so the dinner was a significant commitment?
Howard: Yes, but Colin ran with my ideas and was very supportive. Over dinner we faced a barrage of criticism from Mark and Alan, not of Pembroke, because they didn’t know Pembroke, but of Cambridge’s attitude to business and industry. On the pavement afterwards, I remember with the Pembroke contingent, we thought it hadn’t gone well. But I said that criticism was not a bad thing, at least it meant they were listening to what we said and knew enough to criticise, and so I’m going to follow-up with them. Clive spoke to Mark and said why don’t you come on board and help us get it right, and he did. I spoke to BT and that didn’t go so well, but we made contact again a few years later and they have been staunch supporters ever since.
Mark: The thing that really crystallised the Corporate Partnership Programme was the dinner at Le Gavroche. I remember being quite confrontational – the thrust of the conversation over dinner was that Pembroke was asking for money – i.e. charity – and I suggested that wouldn’t work. Dinner supercharged the programme and then Clive, Howard and I took it forward, using the strong elements of each of us. Howard was a good salesman, Clive was good at fixing things in the College, and I had the connections!
Q: Tell us about the first William Pitt Fellow
Mark: George Poste was a PhD student in my department at Bristol and was interested in the pharmaceutical industry and was interested in what industry might do with academia, and so his interests fitted in very well with what the College had started to do.
Howard: George was a mercurial renaissance man who was the R&D chief at SmithKline Beecham. Clive, David Buckingham and myself went to meet him in Essex and he agreed to be recommended to be the first William Pitt Fellow. We developed the William Pitt admission ceremony around him and made it look like we had been doing it for centuries. A lot of the programme was trial and error, luckily most of the things we tried worked!
Mark: I wasn’t there for the dinner with George, but I heard afterwards that he kept the Fellowship up talking until 2am!
Q: What do you think the main benefit of the Corporate Partnership Programme has been?
Howard: To the College? It has led to all sorts of diverse things that the College has benefited from, and more contact with the less rarefied world, a more practical and beneficial world. There have also been many instances of individual’s benefiting, such as a Ugandan undergraduate who was funded through College by BT, and others employed by our longest continuous partner Grosvenor.
Mark: I think all that’s right. Another thing is that the standing of the College in this area rose fantastically within the University, and that was quite a lot of Matthew’s work. I’m lost in admiration of the success that the programme has had, the William Pitt Seminars have been extremely good.
Q: Are there any people who were particularly instrumental in creating the CPP?
Howard: Mark and Clive, Clive more than anybody – it wouldn’t have happened without him. It might have happened without Mark but it would not have been as successful. Clive was an enormous enthusiast and travelled all over with me at the start. Jan Maciejowski and Colin Gilbraith, and the governing body was overwhelmingly, with just one or two exceptions, very supportive.
Mark: In addition, as the programme evolved, Mark Wormald when he was Senior Tutor, and also Matthew - he has been absolutely critical to the scheme's continued success.
Q: And the question that always gets asked, why haven’t other Colleges done it?
Howard: A number have tried, but they didn’t have at least one of the three key ingredients. It needed someone of my Development weight to drive this - they didn’t have someone who could present to a boardroom. They didn’t have an academic that supported it and had the say in a College that Clive did. And Clive also, being Senior Tutor, knew what was possible in Cambridge and what wasn’t, and how to do it. And thirdly, it needed a supportive governing body. The Pembroke governing body gave the programme full support and gave me full support and enabled me to do it and they had the faith in me to do it.