Dame Clara Hedwig Frances FurseDBE was the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange between January 2001 and May 2009, and was the first woman to occupy the position. In 2005, she was ranked 19th in Fortune magazine's most powerful women in business list. In 2007, Furse was listed among Time's 100 most influential people in the World.
Biography
Furse was born in Canada to Dutch parents, and educated at schools in Colombia, Denmark, and Britain. She graduated from the London School of Economics in 1979 with a BSc. Furse is the Chairman of HSBC UK, the ring-fenced bank of HSBC Group. She is also a non-executive director of Vodafone Group Plc and Amadeus IT Group, S.A. She is a member of the Panel of Senior Advisors to Chatham House, a member of Bocconi University's International Advisory Council and in 2012, and she chaired the Lead Expert Group of the UK Government's Office for Science Foresight Project on the future of computer trading in financial markets. She was an External Member of the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee, joining the new statutory body and macroprudential regulator in April 2013 and standing down in October 2016. She was a non-executive Director of Nomura Holdings from June 2010 to March 2017. Until April 2017, she was also the lead independent director of the UK's Department for Work and Pensions. She was Chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group a FTSE-100 Company, from January 2001 to May 2009. During this period she was also a non-executive Director of Euroclear plc, LCH Clearnet Group Ltd., Fortis and a member of the Shanghai International Financial Advisory Council. Before she joined the Exchange, Furse was Group Chief executive of Credit Lyonnais Rouse from 1998 to 2000, and before that she spent 15 years at UBS. Furse's career has spanned a broad range of global financial markets. She began her career in 1979 as a broker, joining Phillips and Drew in 1983. At UBS she became a managing director in 1995 and Global Head of Futures in 1996. During the 1990s she also served as a non-executive Director, Committee chairman and Deputy Chairman of LIFFE, the UK's first financial futures exchange.
Furse listed the 200-year-old exchange on its own market in 2001. Very strong growth followed a major technology upgrade to 'TradElect' and an international focus to its listings business, which prompted a record five unsolicited or hostile bids in under two and half years from late 2004 to early 2007. Deutsche Boerse, Euronext, Macquarie, and Nasdaq, launched bids at prices from £5.30 to £12.43. The Exchange conducted an unprecedented number of successful bid defenses before completing its merger with Borsa Italiana in October 2007, which provided the foundation for a diversification into derivatives, fixed income, clearing and settlement.
Fortis
Furse was a non-executive director of Fortis when the Belgian bank, in partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander, purchased ABN Amro in 2008. The acquisition led to the bailout of Fortis which was subsequently sold off in parts to the Belgian and Dutch States and BNP Paribas.
