Christopher Chataway - Business Career

Business Career

When the Conservatives were defeated in 1974, Chataway announced his retirement from politics (at the age of 43) and he did not seek re-election that October. He then went into business becoming a Managing Director of Orion Bank, a consortium bank later acquired by one of its shareholders the Royal Bank of Canada He stayed with Orion, later as Vice Chairman, for 15 years. He held various non-executive directorships. He was also the first Chairman of Groundwork, the environmental charity and Hon Treasurer of the National Campaign for Electoral Reform. His principal outside interest was ActionAid, a small overseas development charity, of which he became Hon Treasurer in 1974 and later Chairman. By the time he left the Board of Trustees in 1999 ActionAid's annual turnover had grown to nearly £100 million. When Chataway's son Adam decided to launch a water project in Ethiopia in memory of his fiancee killed in a road traffic accident he chose to do it in partnership with ActionAid. Vicky's Water Project, opened in 2010, has transformed the lives of 20,000 people. In 1991 Chataway was appointed chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority - a job he relished not least because his father had been one of the early aviators. He supported his friend Chris Brasher when he established the London Marathon, and has been President of the Commonwealth Games Council for England since 1990. He was knighted in 1995 for services to aviation.

In the 2005 general election his stepson Charles Walker was elected as Conservative MP for Broxbourne.