The Institute of Directors (IoD) today announces five new members of its Board. The new appointments are:

Damon Clark to take office from 15 April 2013 for three years
Erica Ingham to take office from 17 July 2013 for three years
Ken Olisa to take office from 15 April 2013 for three years
Chris Walton to take office from 17 July 2013 for three years
Suzy Walton to take office from 2 December 2013 for three years

Short biographies of each new Board member are enclosed below.

Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors, said:

“We are delighted to welcome some of Britain’s most talented and experienced leaders onto the IoD’s Board. For 110 years our Institute has championed good corporate governance, and these new appointments will help to continue that work. Each of them brings unique experience to the table, which further strengthens the IoD’s voice and governance.”

IOD Appointee Biographies

Erica Ingham

Erica Ingham is a Portfolio Finance Director for Summit, a Manchester-based company that provides portfolio finance director services and finance department solutions for SME’s. She is also Finance Director for several SMEs, and specialises in media, creative and technology companies and has over ten years of UK and European Finance Director level experience mainly within the Creative and Technology sector.

Erica has worked for BBC Radio, MTV, 20th Century Fox and Chello Media. She now concentrates on providing strategic finance director support and accounting services to SMEs. Erica specialises in helping companies raise finance, produce meaningful management information and strategic plans and improve cash-flow and profitability.

She is an experienced company director, company secretary and media finance director, with a special interest in the challenges facing SMEs and issues effecting women reaching board level positions. Erica is also a Non-Executive Director of Creative England, a qualified accountant and holds the IoD Certificate in Company Direction.

Ken Olisa OBE

A well-known businessman and philanthropist, Ken Olisa has held numerous roles in the course of his career – particularly in the technology sector.

The first British-born black man to serve on the board of a major UK public company (Reuters), he is currently a Director of Thomson Reuters. He was a Director of Canada’s largest software vendor – Open Text Corporation – for a decade until December 2008 and served as a Director of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation from 2008-2011.

As well as his work with Thomson Reuters, he now runs Restoration Partners, a boutique technology merchant bank, chairs the trading arm of the British Computer Society – BCS Learning and Development – and serves on the Board of, or is and adviser to, several privately held companies including UK governance experts Independent Audit.

Ken has long maintained a full portfolio of pro bono activities as part of his commitment to public service. He is a Freeman of the City of London; Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; a Director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation; Chairman of street homelessness charity Thames Reach; and Founding Chairman of the Powerlist Foundation. In 2010 he was awarded an OBE for his services to the homeless of London.

Damon Clark

Damon Clark is a Shareholder and Managing Director of the Brandwidth Marketing Group, which comprises of marketing services and recruitment businesses, based in Windsor and London.

All of the businesses in the Brandwidth Marketing Group provide modern, leading edge marketing communications to drive business and build brand value. A wide range of conventional and cutting edge digital communications are used to speak to businesses and customers.

Damon is a Chartered Marketer with experience of international brands and many market sectors. His 20 years of experience as a senior marketing, communications and business development professional have placed him at the forefront of his profession.

He is also a Chartered Director, sits on the Institute of Directors Council and is Vice Chairman of the Board of Examiners of the IoD. (He will be stepping down from the latter two roles to take up his position as Board member).

Chris Walton

Chris Walton is the Chairman of Lothian Buses Plc, the operator of 750 buses in Edinburgh, and Chairman of Goldenport Holdings Inc, a listed shipping company with a world-wide container and dry-bulk shipping fleet. He is also the Senior Independent Director and Audit Chair of Rockhopper Exploration Plc, a listed oil exploration company, and Audit Chair of the Kazakhstan State Railways, the world’s 19th largest railway system.

In the public sector, he is a non-executive member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is responsible for the digital economy, broadcasting (BBC, Channel 4, digital media, mobile telephone spectrum allocation, broadband), museums, sport, tourism and gambling. DCMS was of course also responsible for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

As an executive, Chris was Finance Director and CFO of EasyJetPlc from 1999 to 2005, where he successfully directed its IPO. In earlier roles, he held senior finance and commercial posts at Qantas Airways, Air New Zealand, Australia Post and Australian Airlines.

Dr Suzy Walton

Suzy Walton is a Chartered Scientist, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and a Chartered Director. She has a portfolio of board roles and extensive experience of central government.

Suzy is Deputy Chairman of three organisations: the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce); the University of Westminster and the Internet Watch Foundation. She is also on the boards of the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) and Combat Stress, which runs hospitals for veterans with PTSD.

She also sits on many government committees including; the State Honours Committee (Cabinet Office), the Ethics Group of the National DNA Database (Home Office), and the National Specialist Commissioning Group (Department of Health).

Suzy has over a decade’s experience as a Senior Civil Servant in central government. She has served in the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and the Ministry of Defence (MoD). She was awarded a PhD for her research in the MoD into military suicide.

Her earlier career was as a producer, editor and presenter for Sky News, LBC Radio and the BBC. She was also a West End actress playing the juvenile lead in “Children of a Lesser God.” She holds a first class BSc degree, an MSc and a PhD.