Clive Cowdery


Sir Clive Cowdery is an English businessman who made a personal fortune in the insurance industry and has since donated large amounts to charity.

Early life

He was born in Bristol, England in 1963, the third of five siblings. He was educated at Clevedon Comprehensive School, and earned three O-levels and no A-levels.

Career

From 1998 to 2003, Cowdery was chairman and chief executive of General Electric Insurance Holdings, with operations in 12 countries in Europe.
Cowdery is founder of Resolution, an insurance investment firm, which has consolidated over US$200bn of assets in Britain and the US since 2004.
His first Resolution vehicle consolidated four major UK closed life insurance assets. The FTSE100 insurer was sold to Pearl Group in 2008.
According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2019 his net worth was estimated at £137 million.
His second Resolution vehicle merged FTSE100 insurer Friends Provident with AXA's UK life business and other assets. The company was sold to Aviva in 2015.
These two completed projects made significant total returns for shareholders.
In 2013, his first Resolution business in the US acquired an insurance asset from Allstate Corporation and is engaged in further acquisitions.

Charitable works

From its formation, Resolution has devoted half its profits and capital gains to the Resolution Foundation, an independent Social and Economic research organisation set up by Clive Cowdery in 2005. It is now widely seen as Britain's leading authority on Low Earners and the policy responses required to lift their Living Standards.

Other professional interests

Cowdery is majority owner of the magazine Prospect and a member of the governing council of The Institute for New Economic Thinking. He is also a director of Best for Britain, a group campaigning to stop Brexit. Cowdery donated £300,000 to the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 United Kingdom general election.

Honours

Cowdery was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to children and social mobility.

Personal life

Cowdery lives in London. He has five children with his first wife, and a son with his second wife, Tina.