Chris Walton (businessman)
Chris Walton (businessman) | |
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| Born | Christopher John Walton June 19, 1957 |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Citizenship | Australia |
| Alma mater | University of Western Australia |
Christopher John Walton (born 19 June 1957, Australia) is a Chairman and non-executive director specialising in oil & gas, resources, transport and customer facing brands. Presently, Walton holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC NC “KazMunayGas”, Independent Director.
Education and career
Walton received an undergraduate degree and an MBA from The University of Western Australia.
Walton is the Chairman of NC KazMunayGas (KMG)[1], a vertically integrated oil & gas company which operates in every major segment of the oil and gas industry.
In the defence sector, he is a non-executive member of the National Shipbuilding Strategy Client Board [2] which is tasked with overseeing the Naval Ship Acquisition Master Plan for the Royal Navy. He has just stepped down as the Audit Chair of the Submarine Delivery Agency which oversees the procurement, in-service support and disposal of the UK’s submarine fleet.
In the not-for-profit sector, he is a member of the Business School Ambassadorial Council (UK) for the University of Western Australia and is a Trustee of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London’s Charity. In the past, he has served as the Interim Chairman of the UK Institute of Directors (IoD).
For almost a decade, he was the Chairman of Goldenport Holdings Inc [3] (a listed shipping company with a world-wide container and dry-bulk shipping fleet) and the Senior Independent Director and Audit Chair of Rockhopper Exploration Plc (an AIM listed offshore oil explorer). He has also served as Chairman of Lothian Buses Plc (the operator of 730 buses in Edinburgh and the Lothians)
He has served two terms as Audit Chairman on the Board of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), the Kazakhstan State Government railway. KTZ is the 19th largest rail network in the world, with subsidiaries operating 11 regional airports, a sea port, telecommunications, locomotive assembley and wagon manufacturing businesses.
He has also been the Chairman of Asia Resource Minerals Plc, a London listed operator of large open cut coal mines in Indonesia.
In the public sector, he served almost seven years as a non-executive member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is responsible for the “digital economy” (broadband, cyber security etc), broadcasting (BBC, Channel 4, digital media, mobile telephone spectrum allocation), museums, sport, tourism and gambling. It was the department with responsibility for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
In an advisory role, he has served as a non-executive member of the Unified Commission which acts on behalf of the sovereign wealth fund of Kazakhstan to appoint external auditors to the Sovereign Wealth Fund itself and for its 4 largest companies: Kazmunaygas (oil & gas); KEGOC (electricity generation); Kazatomprom (nuclear fuels); and https://telecom.kz/ (telecommunications). Walton also consults on company turn-arounds and private equity investments, with past engagements in Europe, the Middle East and India. He has undertaken advisory work in conjunction with Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley and Otus.
Telefonica O2 and LoveFilm have used Walton as a mentor for senior executives.
As an executive, Walton was Finance Director and CFO of easyJet Plc from 1999 to 2005[4], where he successfully directed its IPO. In 2002, EasyJet won the BT Vision 100 Award for a Visionary Top Team. It also won Air Finance Journal’s European Corporate Finance Deal of the Year award. In 2005, AirFinance Journal conferred Walton a “Lifetime Achievement Award” in aviation.
In earlier roles, he held senior finance and commercial posts at Qantas Airways, Air New Zealand, Australia Post and Australian Airlines. He has also worked for BP Australia, the Australian Senate, Rio Tinto Hamersley Iron and the Western Australian Government. He was a member of the Bank of England’s Regional Economic Advisory Panel (South East England & Anglia) from 2002 to 2005.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and is a Freeman of the City of London and of the City of Glasgow.
He served for almost ten years in the Australian Army Reserve, principally in the 1st Commando Regiment (2 CDO in Melbourne), and has held private pilot’s licences in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Walton holds both British and Australian nationalities.