MICHAEL F JULIEN FCA FCT
Michael Julien, born on 22nd March 1938, was for ten years a non-executive director of Guinness PLC until retiring from the Board on the merger, in December 1997, of Guinness PLC and GrandMet PLC whose combined business is now known as Diageo plc. He was also for five years Chairman of the Guinness Audit Committee.
In addition he was non-executive Chairman of First Choice Holidays PLC and a non-executive director of Medeva PLC, (which has since merged with Celltech Group and is now part of UCB Pharma) where he also chaired the Audit Committee. He has now retired from both these positions and, following his 60th birthday, he has fully retired from public company life.
Michael has been an active user of the internet for several years and, after retiring from his public company life, he became even more interested in the internet. He was a major investor in Oxford Professional Training Limited (“oxford-professional.com”) which uses the internet to support its offline English Language training business in China and provides accountancy and other financial training to major corporates. Oxford Professional has now merged with the Aston Educational Group in Hong Kong.
Prior to these appointments he was Group Chief Executive of Storehouse plc for four years until, on medical advice, he stepped down from that position in July 1992. During his tenure as Group Chief Executive, Storehouse was the owner of BhS, Mothercare, Habitat, Richards, Blazer, Heals and the Conran Shop and Conran Design Group and owned 50% of SavaCentre and 20% of FNAC. However, with the exception of Mothercare, these have now all been sold and Storehouse was renamed Mothercare plc on 4th August 2000.
Before joining Storehouse he was Managing Director (Finance and Administration) of Guinness PLC and, immediately prior to that, he worked for a short spell on the channel tunnel project as Deputy Chief Executive of Eurotunnel.
He was previously Executive Director (Finance and Planning) on the main board of Midland Bank (now owned by HSBC Bank plc), and for six years prior to that was Group Finance Director of BICC plc which was then one of the largest cable and construction groups in the world. However, with the cables and electronic and electrical components businesses all since sold or closed the group now comprises solely the construction arm Balfour Beatty Plc.
His earlier experience in commerce and industry included eight years as Group Finance Director of two of the leading insurance broking and underwriting companies at Lloyds of London - C E Heath (now known as Heath Lambert) and Willis Faber (now known as Willis) - and a period as Group Treasurer of British Leyland (of which the Rover Group is now in administration and Jaguar Cars is a subsidiary of the Tata Group).
In the early 80s, Michael Julien was, for five years, a non-executive director of the Littlewoods Organisation plc (now reduced to its mail order business and known simply as Littlewoods) Littlewoods Ltd, where he was the first outsider to be appointed to the Board of this privately-owned stores, mail order and pools group.
Michael Julien began his career in 1959 at Price Waterhouse (now part of Pricewaterhouse Coopers) where he qualified as a chartered accountant, spending seven years with the firm and becoming a manager in the London office. He is also a Fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.
He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford and during national service was commissioned in the Royal Corps of Signals and subsequently served five years in the territorial army where he commanded the parachute squadron of the 39th Signals Regiment (Special Communications). He is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Barbers.
Michael and his Norwegian wife, Ellen, have two daughters and one son and live in Weybridge, Surrey. They also have a second home in Vendée, France and a small flat in Norway. He can be contacted through his call forwarding service on +44 8448 041576 where you can send faxes or leave messages on voicemail. Both these will then be forwarded to him via e-mail.
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