Catherine Sidony McGuinness, CBE (born 1959), is a politician and public speaker for the City of London Corporation, who served as Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee, the Corporation of London's de facto political leader, from 2017 to 2022.
McGuinness is the daughter of two academics, the philosopher Brian and the music historian Rosamond McGuinness (née Cohan), while her brother, Paddy McGuinness, [1] is a civil servant who served as Deputy National Security Adviser for Intelligence, Security, and Resilience at the Cabinet Office from 2014 to 2018.
In 1988 she married John Gilbert, chairman of the Cripplegate Foundation [2] and former Liberal Democrat councillor for Islington (2006–2014). [3]
After reading PPE at St Anne's College, Oxford, McGuinness qualified as a solicitor. She has represented Castle Baynard Ward on the Common Council since 1997. [4] In May 2017 she took over from Sir Mark Boleat as Chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London Corporation, having previously served as Deputy Chairman. [5]
A Trustee of Centre for London, McGuinness is also a Court Assistant to the Musicians' Company [6] and a member of the livery of the Educators' and Solicitors' companies. [7]
She was appointed CBE in the 2023 New Year Honours. [8]
The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the local authority of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's financial sector.
Mark Christopher Field is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cities of London and Westminster from 2001 to 2019. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2017 to 2019. A prominent supporter of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union during the Brexit referendum and of Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election, he left his post as a Foreign Office Minister when Boris Johnson's premiership began. He stood down from the British House of Commons at the 2019 general election.
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