Curriculum Vitae The Reverend Paul John Flowers

Educated at Barton Peveril Grammar School, , Bristol University (BA in Theology) and Geneva University (Certificate in Ecumenical Studies and Ecumenical Scholarship from the World Council of Churches). A Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Geographical Society, in 2012 he was additionally elected to a Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland (FCIBS).

Co-operatives Paul was the Chair of the Board of the Co-operative Banking Group and also the Chair of the Co-operative Bank plc, between 2010 and June 2013. He was appointed as a Director of the Banking Group in the summer of 2009. He was additionally the senior Deputy Chair of the Co- operative Group as a whole which runs all the family of businesses in the UK. He was the Chair of the Group’s Remuneration and Appointments Committee and of the Diversity Strategy Group. He was a member of the Group Board between 2008 and 2013 and was previously a Director of the United Co-operative Society Ltd until its merger with the Group. He was an elected member of the Executive of the European Association of Co-operative Banks, of the Board of the International Association of Co-operative Banks, and a member of the All Nations Board of the International Co-operative and Mutual Insurance Federation. He was also the Chair of the International Co-operative Alliance’s Global Development Fund, and instrumental in raising many millions of dollars for the Fund’s work. Within the co-operative family Paul chaired the Yorkshire Co-operative Employees Pension Fund and was a trustee of the PACE pension scheme, one of the largest pension schemes in the country. He was an elected member of the Area Committee and the North Regional Board within the Co-operative Group’s structures. He stood down from all his roles within the Co-operative Group in June 2013. Church Paul has been a Minister of the Methodist Church since 1975 serving in a variety of locations around the country. He is currently in a part-time appointment serving two churches in urban villages in . He is a long-serving member of the Methodist Conference and was for a number of years the Secretary and then the President of the Consultative Conference of European Methodist Churches. He is a member of the Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes, the custodian trustee body which cares for all the church’s property and invested funds in the UK. He is a Methodist adviser to the Joseph Rank Benevolent Trust. He serves on the national body which selects candidates for ministry and is Chaplain to the Bradford branch of the Royal British Legion.

Politics and Community Life Paul has been an active member of the Labour Party since he was 16. He retired as a member of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council in 2011, where in 10 years of service he specialised in quasi- judicial matters and was a member of the Council’s Executive, latterly with responsibility for Culture, Sport, Planning and Housing. He is also a former member of Metropolitan District Council where he served as Vice-Chair of the Social Services Committee. He was a member of the NEC of the Co-operative Party and Chair of the Party’s Policy Committee. Paul has been the Chair of the Governors of Lidget Green Primary School and Children’s Centre since 2001. The school is in one of the most deprived communities in the country, and he is very proud of the work that the School does within that very diverse community. Always engaged in community life wherever he has lived he has invariably chaired or served on the Boards and committees of many community based organisations. He was the Chair of the Lifeline Project, which works with substance abuse users, for 16 years; was Vice-Chair of the National Association of Citizens’ Advice Bureaux – as well as of local bureaux in several locations; and a member of the Board of the Advertising Standards Authority. He served on the Board of the Contact Theatre in Manchester for 10 years and was also the Chair of the Platypus Theatre-in-Education Company in the West Midlands. He is currently a member-elected Trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust, the country’s largest HIV and sexual health charity, and Chair of the Board of the Manchester Camerata Orchestra Ltd.

Other interests Paul is a voracious and eclectic reader and a regular theatre and concert goer - he has subscription tickets to the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester and to the Bradford International Concert Season. He enjoys contemporary ballet and football. He also enjoys tennis, cricket, travel and spending time over good food and wine with old friends. He has an aversion to Facebook and its contribution to the corruption of the English language!

Paul Flowers Bradford October 2013