Name: Paul Manduca
Was: Senior independent director of Morrisons
Now: Chairman of Prudential
Number of years in grocery: 5.5 years
Career background: Manduca boasted an impressive career history in financial services when he joined Morrisons in 2005, with a back catalogue of well-known City names on his CV. Among the most high-profile were Threadneedle Asset Management, where he was founding CEO between 1994 and 1999 Rothschild Asset Management, where he was global CEO of for three years until 2002, and Deutsche Asset Management - holding the European CEO role for three years until 2005. Prior to joining Prudential, he was chairman of Aon UK for almost four years and a non-executive and chairman of the audit committee of KazMunayGaz, Kazakhstan’s state oil and gas company.
What is he doing now? Manduca holds multiple chairmanships, the most high-profile of which is for Prudential, the insurance and financial services giant, a post he took up in July last year, although he had been a non-executive director since October 2010. His leadership skills were tested in March this year when the Financial Services Authority fined Prudential £30m for failing to inform it of its bid to buy AIA, the Asian subsidiary of US insurer AIG in 2010. Manduca also chairs Microlease, a specialist in electronic test and measurement equipment.
At Morrisons: Manduca was one of four non-executive directors appointed by Sir Ken Morrison by September 2005, after mounting pressure from investors for him to finalise Morrisons’ corporate governance structure. While at Morrisons from September 2005 to March 2011, Manduca was a member of the nomination committee, and chaired both the remuneration committee and audit committees at various times.
