Alice Perkins, CB, is the Chairman of the Post Office Ltd. She was appointed to this position in July 2011, to lead the Board following the separation of the Post Office from the Royal Mail . She is an Executive Coach and a partner in the coaching practice of the JCA Group, a member of the Faculty of Meyler Campbell, which provides training for business coaches and has been an external member of the Council of the University of Oxford since 2006. She is a member of the Business Advisory Council of the Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford.
Alice Perkins attended North London Collegiate School for Girls, and then St Anne's College, Oxford, from which she graduated in Modern History in 1971. She joined the Civil Service Fast Stream in 1971.
The early years of her career were spent in the Department of Health and Social Security. In 1993 she moved to the Treasury as Director of Public Spending, where her priorities were Defence, the Intelligence Agencies, Aid, Foreign Office and Agriculture spending. In 1998 she returned to the Department of Health as Director General for Corporate Management responsible for administration of the Department. In 2001 Perkins moved to the Cabinet Office to work as Director General, Corporate Development Group, responsible for human resources across government, top appointments and civil service reform, reporting direct to the Cabinet Secretary. She left the civil service in 2005.
In early 2006 Perkins joined the board of the country's largest airports operator BAA, until its take-over by the Spanish firm Ferrovial later in 2006. She has also served as a non-executive Director on the Board of Littlewoods (1997–2001) and TNS (the global market information company) where she was also Chair of the Renumeration Committee from 2005 until its takeover by WPP in 2008.
Alice Perkins is married to Jack Straw. They have two children, Will and Charlotte, both of whom are married. In 2002 she was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).
Famous quotes containing the words alice and/or perkins:
“Glorious bouquets and storms of applause ... are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys. But to move an audience in such a role, to hear in the applause that unmistakable note which breaks through good theatre manners and comes from the heart, is to feel that you have won through to life itself. Such pleasure does not vanish with the fall of the curtain, but becomes part of one’s own life.”
—Dame Alice Markova (b. 1910)
“Architecture might be more sportive and varied if every man built his own house, but it would not be the art and science that we have made it; and while every woman prepares food for her own family, cooking can never rise beyond the level of the amateur’s work.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)