William Russell (Lord Mayor)
William Anthony Bowater Russell, is a British financier, who serves as the 692nd Lord Mayor of the City of London for 2019–2021.
In view of the global disruption to public life brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lord Mayor Russell is to volunteer himself for re-election as Lord Mayor of London for the year following too.Biography
Educated at Eton and Durham University, graduating LLB, Russell started his career in financial services at First Boston in 1987, and joined Merrill Lynch in 1992, working in Hong Kong, New York and London, before leaving in 2006.
Since 2013 Alderman Russell represents Bread Street Ward on the City of London Corporation, serving as Sheriff of the City of London for 2016–17, and was elected Lord Mayor on 1 October 2019, taking office before the Lord Mayor's Show on 9 November 2019. He is also a Feltmaker and an Honorary Liveryman of the Paviors' Company.
Russell is a member of the Advisory Board of Innovate Finance, an independent not-for-profit membership organisation serving the global FinTech community and a Court Assistant to the Haberdashers' Company.Family
The only son of Anthony Russell, a stockbroker, he is in remainder to the family baronetcy, created for his great-great-uncle, Charles Russell, founder of the eponymous law firm.
Charlotte née Bowater, his mother, was from a Kentish family of paper packagers;
her father, Sir Ian Bowater GBE, was Lord Mayor of London for 1969–70, and his father Sir Frank Bowater, Lord Mayor for 1938–39.
Damian Lewis is his maternal half-brother.Personal life
In 1989, Russell married Hilary Chaplin: they have four children, qv.Honours
