Board & Committees

Hugh Twiss joined the Board on 1 October 2003 and was elected Chairman in May 2006. He has also been Chairman of the Nominations Committee since January 2004. He has more than 30 years’ investment experience, predominantly with the Flemings Group where he was a senior member of their investment management operation for many years, including responsibility for investment teams and other business issues, before retiring in 2001. He has had many years’ involvement with investment trusts, including as a director, manager, major institutional shareholder and long time personal investor. He is currently a non-executive director of INVESCO Income Growth Trust plc, a member of the Greenwich Hospital Advisory Panel and is involved with other charities, as well as doing various consultancy assignments, including working with Trust Associates.

• Membership

• MEC
• NC
• AC

Vivian Bazalgette joined the Board on 1 November 2004. His career as an investment specialist began 30 years earlier and included periods with James Capel, the stockbrokers, and Mercury Asset Management before spending nearly 10 years at Gartmore where he became Managing Director of Pension Funds. In 1996 he joined M&G as Chief Investment Officer, retaining the same position until 2002 after M&G's acquisition by Prudential. He was also a director of M&G High Income Investment Trust plc. He is currently a non-executive director of Brunner Investment Trust plc and Perpetual Income and Growth Investment Trust plc, an adviser to BAE Systems Pension Fund and the Nuffield Foundation, as well as being a member of the investment committee of St James’s Place PLC. Among a number of charity involvements, he is deputy Chairman of the Governers of Dulwich College and a trustee of King’s College Hospital Charity.

• Membership

• MEC
• NC
• AC

Andrew Bell joined the Board on 1 November 2004. He has worked in the City since 1987, initially specialising in European equities as a strategist at Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW), following which he was Co-Head of the Investment Trusts team at BZW and Credit Suisse First Boston. From there, in 2000 he joined Carr Sheppards Crosthwaite (now Rensburg Sheppards Investment Management Limited), where he was a director and Head of Research and Strategy until February 2010, leaving to take up appointment as a director and Chief Executive Officer of Witan Investment Trust plc from 8 February 2010. Prior to the City, he worked for Shell in Oman, leaving to take a Sloan Fellowship at the London Business School. He is a non-executive director of Framlington Innovative Growth Trust plc and of the Association of Investment Companies, as well as serving as a governor of Bedford School.

• Membership

• MEC
• NC
• AC

Mrs Littlejohns joined the board on 1 July 2008. Following university she joined Citigroup, accumulating 18 years of experience in both commercial and investment banking and developing particular expertise in derivatives and in credit and market risk management. She has also worked as an independent consultant in the commercial, charitable and academic sectors. Since 2004 she has established two new self storage companies in the Midlands and is currently Finance Director and Company Secretary of The Space Place Self Storage (Telford) Ltd. She is also a trustee of two charities involved in relieving and researching lymphatic cancer: The Lymphoma Association and The Lymphoma Research Trust.

• Membership

• MEC
• NC
• AC

Mr Newhouse joined the board on 1 July 2008. He is a solicitor who, until recently, was a partner in Slaughter and May. He began his career in the City in banking and joined Slaughter and May in 1976, where he became a partner in 1984. He had a wide-based domestic and international corporate finance practice advising many UK listed and other corporate entities. Mr Newhouse is currently a member of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Panel and a visiting professor at the London Metropolitan University Business School. During his career at Slaughter and May Mr Newhouse never acted for Henderson High Income Investment Trust plc. Mr Newhouse will not take part in any Board decision to use the services of Slaughter and May.

• Membership

• MEC
• NC
• AC

Janet S Walker joined the Board on 1 June 2007. She is Chairman of the Audit Committee. She is the Commercial & Finance Director of Ascot Racecourse and a non-executive director of the Design Council.   Miss Walker has been employed in broadcasting since 1980 including roles as Director of Finance and Business Affairs at Channel Four Television from 1998 to 2003, Director of Finance at Granada Media Group from 1996 to 1998, Financial Controller, Regional Broadcasting for the BBC from 1994 to 1996 and Deputy Director of Finance and Corporation Secretary at Channel Four Television from 1988 to 1994.

• Membership

• MEC
• NC
• AC