Education and career
Currie was born in Streatham,south London,and attended Battersea Grammar School. He obtained a first class degree in mathematics at Manchester University and a master's degree in National Economic Planning at Birmingham University,after which he obtained a post as an economist with Hoare Govett. He took a position in 1972 as a lecturer at Queen Mary College,University of London,and progressed to an appointment as Professor of Economics. After that he spent 12 years at the London Business School,and was appointed as Professor of Economics in 1988. [1] [2]
In 1992,Currie became one of the 'six wise men' advising the Conservative Government's Treasury Department on economic matters as a member of the Treasury's Panel of Independent Forecasters,where he remained for three years. [1] Currie was a director and the Chairman of the executive committee of the pressure group Charter88 from 1993 to 1997. [1] On 1 October 1996 he was made a life peer and sits as a cross-bench member of the House of Lords. His title was gazetted Baron Currie of Marylebone,of Marylebone in the City of Westminster. [3]
Ofcom
In July 2002 the Culture Secretary,Tessa Jowell,appointed Currie to be the first Chairman of the newly created Office of Communications,Ofcom,which combined the responsibilities of five different previously existing regulators:
Currie compared regulators to drains:"If you notice them,then there is a problem".
Jowell renewed his appointment in 2007 for a further two years. Currie's achievements during his chairmanship include the telecoms strategic review which led to the rapid unbundling of BT phone lines and using the open market to allocate spectrum via auctioning. In October 2004,when delivering the Fleming Memorial Lecture to the Royal Television Society,Currie warned UK broadcasters they faced a "volcanic eruption" of new technology which would bring "with it an unprecedented challenge for traditional linear television broadcasting". In 2009 Currie's extended term came to an end,and he was succeeded by Colette Bowe.
Other roles
Currie was a member of the board of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority from 2000 until 2002. [1] Currie has served as a Director of the Dubai Financial Services Authority since 2004. [4] In 2011,he published a report into reforms of certain aspects of procurement of equipment for the UK's Ministry of Defence. His proposals were supported in a white paper,Better Defence Acquisition,published in June 2013, [5] and were used as the basis for Part 2 of the Defence Reform Act 2014. Following the News International phone hacking scandal,Currie was appointed on 20 July 2011 to the advisory panel of the Leveson Inquiry into the culture,practices and ethics of the British press. [1] Currie has formerly served on the boards of Abbey National (2001–2002),BDO International (2008–2012),Royal Mail (2009–2012),IG Group (2010–2012),and as Chairman of Semperian (2008–2012),as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra (2007–2012) and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (1989–2002). [1]
Currie is currently a Board member of the Institute for Government, [6] and the Chair of Council of the University of Essex. [7]
Competition and Markets Authority
In July 2012 Currie was appointed as chairman-designate of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). which began operation on 1 April 2014. He set out his concept for the Authority in a lecture to the Law Society in November 2012. He stepped down from all of his UK-based commercial directorships in 2012 to avoid conflicts of interest, [7] taking a yearly salary from the CMA of between £180,000 and £184,999,making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector as of September 2015.
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