Mr Paul Skinner

Paul Skinner is an experienced leader of major global corporations in the basic resources industries.  He also has board experience as a non-executive director of financial services and industrial companies, and in various public sector roles.  

Paul was educated at Cambridge University, where he graduated in law, and later at the Manchester Business School.  He joined the Royal Dutch Shell group of companies as a student and, during his career, he worked in all its main businesses, including senior appointments in the UK, Greece, Nigeria, New Zealand and Norway. From 1999 he was CEO of the Group’s global Oil Products business and was Managing Director of The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company plc, and a Group Managing Director, from 2000-2003.  He was Chairman of Shell Canada Ltd, then a publicly-quoted company, between 2001-3.

In 2001 he became a non-executive director of Rio Tinto plc, the global mining and minerals company, dual-listed in the UK and Australia, and was Chairman over the period 2003-9 which saw a major programme of expansion across all its product groups.  He was Chairman of Infrastructure UK, within HM Treasury, over the period 2009-13 and oversaw the development of the UK’s National Infrastructure Plan and related policy initiatives.  He was Chair of Defence Equipment and Support, a trading entity within the Ministry of Defence responsible for defence procurement and related support activities to the UK armed forces over the period 2014-19.  

He was a non-executive director of Standard Chartered plc over the period 2003-15, of the Tetra Laval Group from 2005-15, and Air Liquide SA from 2006-15.  He was a non-executive member of the Public Interest Body of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP from 2010 – 19 and of the Advisory Body of Norton Rose Fulbright LLP from 2014 to 2017.

Paul was President of the UK Chamber of Shipping in 1997/8; Chairman of the governing body of ICC UK over the period 2004-8; and Chairman of the Commonwealth Business Council 2007-9.  He was a member of the Defence Board at the Ministry of Defence over the period 2006-9, and from 2014-19, and was a member of the Board of INSEAD Business School over the period 1999-2011.

He is a Fellow Commoner of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was previously Chair of its Development Board, overseeing a major fundraising campaign. At the invitation of the Prime Minister he was a UK Business Ambassador from 2008-12.  He was appointed CBE in 2014.

Paul is married with two sons and his interests include outdoor sports, opera, theatre and modern history.