Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell
Jonathan Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 5, 1955 Ipswich, England |
| Occupation(s) | Businessman, academic |
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Known for | Chairman of the Financial Services Authority (2008–2013), Chair of the Committee on Climate Change (2008–2012), Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry |
Jonathan Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell (born 5 October 1955) is a distinguished British businessman and academic, best known for his role as Chairman of the Financial Services Authority throughout the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession, serving from September 2008 until the agency's dissolution in March 2013. He has also led the Pensions Commission and the Committee on Climate Change, in addition to holding the position of Director-General at the Confederation of British Industry. In a BBC HARDtalk interview, Turner described himself as a 'technocrat'.
Turner is a vocal proponent of monetary financing and "helicopter money", advocating for central banks to finance government expenditures directly or provide cash payments to citizens. Since 2010, he has regularly contributed monthly opinion pieces on economic and regulatory matters to Project Syndicate.
Early life
Turner was born in Ipswich and spent his childhood in the newly developed towns of Crawley and East Kilbride. His father Geoffrey was a town planner educated at the University of Liverpool. Turner attended Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow followed by Glenalmond College. He pursued higher education at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he achieved a Double First in History and Economics, served as President of the Cambridge Union, and chaired the University's Conservative Association. In 1981, he became a member of the Social Democratic Party.
Business career
Turner's professional journey began with part-time economics teaching before he joined BP in 1979. He then worked at Chase Manhattan Bank between 1979 and 1982. In 1982, he moved to McKinsey & Co, becoming a director by 1994. From 1995 until 1999, he held the position of Director-General at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), where he was an outspoken supporter of British entry into the eurozone—a stance he would later revise. Between 2000 and 2006, Turner served as Vice-Chairman for Merrill Lynch Europe.
Alongside his business roles, Turner lectures part-time at the London School of Economics, where in 2010 he delivered a notable series titled "Economics after the Crisis," subsequently published by MIT Press. This work critiques conventional economic approaches focused exclusively on GDP growth and market liberalization, emphasizing issues related to inequality.
In 2002, Turner chaired a UK government inquiry into pensions. He also succeeded Frances Cairncross as Chairman of the Economic and Social Research Council, and in 2007 took over from Baroness Jay as Chair of the Council for the Overseas Development Institute.
In collaboration with economist David Kennedy, Turner co-authored Building a Low-carbon Economy in 2008. That same year, he was appointed as the first Chairman of the British Government's newly established Committee on Climate Change, a post he maintained until spring 2012.
Turner was named Chairman of the Financial Services Authority on 29 May 2008, officially starting on 20 September that year for a five-year term, succeeding Callum McCarthy.
On 27 December 2023, Turner took on the role of Chairman at OakNorth Bank, continuing his leadership within financial services.
Financial Services Authority
During a February 2009 appearance on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, Turner defended the regulator’s performance, emphasizing that global regulatory bodies, despite their diverse frameworks and methods, similarly failed to predict the financial crisis. He conceded that the FSA erred intellectually by concentrating excessively on procedural details rather than considering the wider economic environment. Concerning Sir James Crosby's appointment as deputy chairman amid concerns about risky lending practices at HBOS, Turner clarified that the FSA maintained risk assessments for nearly all financial institutions.
He refrained from apologizing for the FSA’s involvement in the near-failure of leading banks and acknowledged that it had not foreseen the repercussions of Lloyds Bank’s acquisition of HBOS in 2008. Although Lloyds staff bonuses faced criticism, Turner defended bonus payments averaging 15% for his 2,500 employees, arguing that reducing bonuses would effectively decrease overall compensation by a similar margin.
In an August 2009 interview with Prospect magazine, Turner advocated for implementing global financial transaction taxes (often referred to as the "Tobin tax"), cautioning that an oversized financial sector with disproportionately high salaries was unsustainable.
Institute for New Economic Thinking
In April 2013, Lord Turner became a senior research fellow in London at George Soros's economic think tank, the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He later authored Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance, which explores reforms aimed at improving global financial systems.
Turner co-authored the foundational report for the Global Apollo Programme in 2015, calling on developed countries to allocate 0.02% of their GDP annually over ten years to support joint research efforts aimed at making carbon-free baseload electricity more affordable than coal power by 2025.
He served as the first chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee from 2008 until 2012. As of 2024, he leads the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC), an international alliance of corporations dedicated to achieving a net-zero economy by mid-century.
Views on human nature
In 2016, Turner reflected on his evolution from initial faith in rational discourse to understanding that individuals often seek emotional identity through mythologies, nationalisms, and religions, underscoring the difficulty of balancing these needs while preventing extremism.
Honoured
On 7 September 2005, Turner was granted a life peerage as Baron Turner of Ecchinswell in recognition of his contributions to public service. He sits as a crossbencher. In 2016, he was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.
Personal life
Turner married Orna Ní Chionna in 1985 after meeting her at McKinsey. Born in Ireland in 1956, she has held prominent roles including Chair of the Soil Association council and non-executive directorships at Northern Foods and Royal Mail plc. Since 2023, she has been chairing the Eden Project Trust.