Rachel Lomax

Janis Rachel Lomax (born 15 July 1945) in Swansea Wales is a British economist and former government official who served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, sitting on the Monetary Policy Committee from 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2008.

Early life

After attending Rossall Preparatory School and Cheltenham Ladies' College, Lomax graduated from Girton College, Cambridge with an MA in 1966, and obtained an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1968.

Career

Before joining the Bank, she was Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport, having moved there with her Secretary of State Alistair Darling when prime minister Tony Blair reshuffled his cabinet following the resignation—in highly-charged and controversial circumstances—of the Secretary of State for Transport Stephen Byers.

Between 1999-2002 Lomax was permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions (previously the Department of Social Security) and, from 1996-9, at the Welsh Office where she oversaw the setting up of the National Assembly for Wales. She was a Vice President and Chief of Staff to the President of the World Bank in 1995-6 and Head of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat at the Cabinet Office in 1994. Her earlier career was spent at HM Treasury, which she joined in 1968 and where she worked on a wide range of macro economic, monetary, and financial issues. She was Principal Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Nigel Lawson, in the mid 1980s, and Deputy Chief Economic Adviser in the early 1990s.

She became a non-executive Director of HSBC Holdings plc on 1 December 2008. In December 2010 she joined BAA as a Non-Executive Director.

Personal life

Rachel Lomax is on the Board of the Royal National Theatre and of De Montfort University. In June 2007 she received an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow. She has two sons (one is a doctor and the other a DJ). She married Michael Acworth Lomax in 1967, and divorced in 1990. In December 2010, she joined the BAA Board as a Non-Executive Director.

External links

• Telegraph article September 25 2004
• Guardian article November 22 2003