Miles Templeman
Presented by Professor Frank Sanderson
Honourable Pro-Chancellor, I have pleasure in presenting Miles Templeman for the award of an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University.
Miles Templeman, an experienced and highly successful brand marketeer, has been Director-General of the Institute of Directors since 2004.
A firm believer in the power of the brand and the importance of valuing your team, he is being honoured today for his outstanding contribution to the UK economy and university/business engagement.
Miles Howard Templeman was born in 1947 and grew up in north London.
After Haberdashers Askes school in Hertfordshire, Miles studied Economics at Jesus College, Cambridge where he also captained the rugby team. After Cambridge, he studied at Columbia University, New York, gaining a postgraduate Diploma in Marketing.
He began his marketing career in 1970 and quickly realised the power of good branding, the importance of aligning the organisation in support of the brand, and the fundamental requirement for good marketing to be accompanied by a good product. He gained valuable experience in marketing management with a range of major brands, including Daz and Ribena before becoming a notably successful General Merchandise Manager and Marketing Director for North Europe at Levi Strauss in the late Seventies.
There he learned how to bring the best out of people and how to ensure that teams from different disciplines move in the same, focused direction in support of the customer.
In 1985 he became Managing Director of Threshers, growing their wine business and increasing the market share. In 1989, he became Group Marketing Director at the Whitbread Beer Company where he had particular success in growing the Boddingtons and Stella Artois brands. In fact, he transformed Stella Artois from an obscure Belgian beer into Britain's top-selling premium lager.
In 1997, he then became the Chairman of Whitbread's Beefeater restaurant chain and then Chief Executive of HP Bulmer Holdings in 2003.
His experience and expertise led to further roles, including part-time executive Chairman at Eldridge Pope, Non-Executive Chairman of restaurant chain YO! Sushi and a series of non-executive and consultancy roles with for example, Royal Mail, Ben Sherman, Accenture and Shepherd Neame. He has retained a number of these roles since becoming the Director General of the IoD.
He also holds the following affiliations: a member of the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Brewers, a Board Member of Young Enterprise and Enterprise Insight, and a member of the European Confederation of Directors' Associations.
Since his appointment as Director General of the IoD, Miles has enthusiastically supported, represented and sought to set standards for company directors. With the IoD having a world-wide network of 44,000 members, and its influence extending into every corner of the business community, Miles has a powerful platform to champion business standards and interests, promoting good corporate governance and the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation in business.
Last year, he made the headlines with an appeal to the politicians to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses which he believes is damaging the competitiveness of British business. Under the headline "Red tape costs UK business £80 billion", he declared "When the regulatory burden is so large that it typically occupies one employee in every private enterprise in the UK for nearly half a year, it's obvious we have a problem. Officials are incentivised to produce legislation. Unless the government changes the way civil servants are evaluated and rewarded, businesses will continue to face a large and ever-increasing burden of paperwork that hinders them from growing and, ultimately, from creating jobs."
His intellectual qualities have obviously contributed to his sustained success in business but equally important are his personal qualities. In Management Today in 2003, he was described thus: "genial and warm, he doesn't talk in the hideous management patois of many senior executives. There's a humility and matter-of-factness about him that is both endearing and diverting. Former colleagues speak warmly of him. He's full of energy and is intensely driven."
The energetic and driven Miles Templeman was the perfect recruit to the World of Work board at our University. He is enthusiastic about what's happening at LJMU.
He believes that universities should give greater priority to employability, not least because his members frequently tell him how ill-prepared many graduates are for the world of work. Having become familiar with our WoW programme, he sees us as employability trail-blazers, setting the standard to be strived for by other universities. And with the ever-increasing financial pressures on students, he sees WoW as a selling point for LJMU, particularly as the good news stories about successful WoW graduates become more apparent.
Away from challenges of the corporate world, Miles often relaxes with golf and, as he puts it, 'rather slow doubles tennis', fully recognising the health benefits but actually playing sport because he loves it.
Miles Templeman, after an outstanding career in marketing a diverse range of successful brands, still retains a high profile in the business world, and expertly uses his position to communicate his enlightened views on business development, not infrequently through keynote lectures at universities throughout the UK.
Under his leadership the IoD has consolidated its reputation as a centre of excellence for directors around the world. And it is gratifying to observe that his plea for greater alignment of university curricula with the needs of business accords precisely with the purpose of the WoW programme at Liverpool John Moores University.
We greatly appreciate Miles Templeman's active support for the WoW initiative and are delighted to honour him today.
Thus I have great pleasure in presenting Miles Templeman, this most distinguished person, for admission to our highest honour of Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University.
