Barbara Judge

Her first job after graduation was in 1969 with the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where she worked as a corporate lawyer. In 1973, she joined the law firm Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays, and Handler, where she specialised in corporate law and financial transactions, becoming a partner in 1978.[20] At that time she married Allen L. Thomas.[10][24]

In 1980, Barbara Thomas was appointed by President Carter as a member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C., for a five-year term.[23] Her appointment was widely reported, being the youngest-ever SEC commissioner and only the second woman in the role. She was instrumental in opening U.S. capital markets to foreign companies.[25] She also negotiated on behalf of the U.S. government to open the Tokyo Stock Exchange to foreign members, against opposition from some US financial commentators, who believed that American investors would be uninterested in Japanese stocks.[26] She later described these achievements as among the most significant of her career.[20][27]

Later, as Lady Judge, she was a deputy chairman of The Financial Reporting Council.[28]

She also worked in various capacities for the British Government's Department of Trade and Industry and its Department for Constitutional Affairs, as well as a public member of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants.[19]

In April 2010, Judge was appointed chairman of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), which provides compensation to employees with pension schemes in bankrupt firms.[29] She was the first woman to serve in the role. She was reappointed as chairman in 2013 and completed her second (and maximum) term in July 2016.[30] She advocated that the pension regulator be given the power to block companies from deals that would harm pension scheme members, referring to Sir Philip Green's sale of British Home Stores to Dominic Chappell.[31] Judge was a supporter of auto-enrolment in pension schemes.[32]

In May 2016, Lady Judge was announced as the chairman-elect of Cifas, the UK's fraud prevention service. Cifas is a not-for-profit company working to protect businesses, charities, public bodies and individuals from financial crime. She succeeded Ken Cherrett in September 2016.[33]

In February 2018, Judge was appointed chair of the Astana Financial Services Authority in Kazakhstan.[34]

In November 1983, after the birth of her son, Barbara Thomas left the SEC and moved to Hong Kong with her husband to be a regional executive director at Samuel Montagu & Co.; by that appointment she became the first woman to be appointed an executive director of a British merchant bank.[21][35] In 1987, she became senior vice president and group head of international private banking at Bankers Trust in New York.[19]

In 1988, she gave a character reference for Charles Keating, a former client of Kaye, Scholer. Keating was head of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and American Continental Corporation, two companies whose collapse a year later formed part of the Savings and Loan crisis; later she was one of a number of professionals named in a resulting class action. Judge disputed the claim but settled out of court to avoid a protracted court case.[27][36]

In 1994, she moved from New York to London with her husband and her son, whom she wanted to raise in England.[19] Subsequently, she worked in the private equity industry in the UK, including an acquisition of Scotia Haven Food Group and Whitworths Food Group; she also founded Private Equity Investor plc.[19]

In 1993, Barbara Thomas was an executive director of Rupert Murdoch's News International.[37]

Judge was the first woman on the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School of Management at the University of Pennsylvania and a founding director of the Lauder Institute of Management at Wharton, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of New York Institute of Technology.[19][38]

Judge was on the governing bodies of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Sabancı University, the Energy Institute at University College, London, and the Ditchley Foundation.[39]

She was a trustee of the Wallace Collection.[40] She was an Honorary Visiting Professor in Experiential Leadership and Head of Council for the Cass Global Women's Leadership Programme, completing her one-year term in June 2018.[41]

In January 2016, Lady Judge was appointed the first female chairman of the Advisory Board of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE), succeeding Sir John Armitt.[42]

She was a trustee of Historic Royal Palaces, Inc[43] and of the Royal Academy of Arts, where she was an active fundraiser and chairman of the Benjamin West Patrons Group.[44]

She was also a visiting fellow of the University of Oxford Saïd Business School at the Centre for Corporate Reputation.[45]

Judge funded a scholarship for black African women to study at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.[46] She sat on the advisory board for Accelerate-Her, a network in support of women working in technology.[47]

Judge was chairman of the management board of SNOMED International, a not-for-profit organization that owns, administers and develops SNOMED CT.[48] She was appointed to Dementia UK's Board of Trustees in January 2015.[49] She was an advisor to The Cambridge Code, a firm providing software-based diagnostic tools.[50]

Judge was on the board of the US coal group Massey Energy.[51] Her principal role there was corporate governance, but also included roles on the finance, safety, environmental and public policy committees at the time of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster that killed 29 workers in Beckley, West Virginia.[51] She resigned from the board three weeks after the disaster, citing other ongoing business activities.[51] Judge was not personally criticised in the official report into the disaster, written by the US Government's Mine Safety and Health Administration.[52] Before the disaster, Judge and other directors were criticised by CtW Investment Group, a shareholder activist group affiliated with the Change to Win Federation, a coalition of American labour unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.[52] CtW questioned Judge's ability to devote sufficient time to the Massey board role; she went on to be re-elected to the board unopposed.[52]

Lady Judge became a non-executive director in 2002, and in 2004 the chairman, of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).[6] She was succeeded by Roger Cashmore in 2010, after the sale of the UKAEA's decommissioning business to Babcock International Group in 2009.[53]

Judge at the World Economic Forum in 2010

Judge's initial brief from government ministers was to "hold and fold" the UKAEA before shutting it down, at a potential loss of 2,800 jobs. Judge proposed an alternative plan, where the business would be built up, internationalised and then privatised. The agency's main business was decommissioning old British nuclear sites; Judge pushed for similar contracts on sites in the former Soviet Union and pursued partnerships in countries such as Korea. She also lobbied the Tony Blair government to end its opposition to nuclear power.[54] These activities publicised the work of the agency amid an increase in positive sentiment towards nuclear power in the mid-'00s, with governments commissioning new reactors in order to meet carbon emission targets. She describes her time with UKAEA as "like spinning straw into gold", referring to her initial brief to close down the agency.[55] In 2010, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the Nuclear and Financial Services Industries.[56]

In October 2012, Judge was appointed deputy chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company's Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee and chairman of its Nuclear Safety Task Force.[57] The Monitoring Committee is an advisory body of domestic Japanese and international experts which supervises the activities of the Task Force.[58] Judge has argued that it is particularly appropriate for a woman to join the group, as women are typically the most vocal opponents of nuclear power.[59] She believed nuclear energy is critical to the security of energy supply and its associated national security, and that nuclear power has as much of a role to play in carbon reduction as renewable energy sources.[60]

Judge has been on the International Advisory Board for the development of nuclear energy in the United Arab Emirates and has led a trade delegation to India to discuss how British companies could take part in the construction of six nuclear reactors at Jaitapur.[61] In 2016, Judge was appointed to the International Advisory Group of the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission.[62] She has called for a transition arrangement for the UK's membership of Euratom prior to Brexit and a structured relationship with Euratom thereafter.[63]

In 2015, Lady Judge became the first woman to be appointed as Chairman of the 113-year-old Institute of Directors (IoD), the British members' organisation which works in promotion of company directors and corporate governance.[64] Judge said she had a "three part mission" to her tenure, using her position to open doors for women to become chief executives; to encourage the IoD to host entrepreneurship; and to encourage older workers to remain in the workforce as both employees and paid mentors to younger generations of entrepreneurs.[64]

Judge with Nicco Group Chairman Rajive Kaul in 2011

She advocated for schools to instil self-belief and optimism in girls, and for female STEM students to be encouraged into traditionally male careers such as engineering.[65] She believed that the emphasis on placing women into non-executive roles must be augmented by a similar effort to get women into chief executive roles, with companies helping to alleviate the "pressure points" for women with family responsibilities, which often include caring for elderly parents as well as children.[66] Judge has advised women in business to learn accountancy, explaining, "That's where the power lies."[3] Judge also wanted the IoD to enable young entrepreneurs to connect with older executives, by pairing them in an alumni programme.[3]

Referring to the pension deficit at British Home Stores, Judge called for the Pensions Regulator to have power of binding veto over mergers and acquisitions activity in firms of a certain size, so that a purchasing firm must present a detailed plan for addressing any deficit in the pension fund of the target firm.[67] She also called for a corporate governance code for large privately owned companies.[68]

Judge called for the introduction of tax allowances to help adults learn new workplace skills.[69] In a 2017 article for The Telegraph online, she argued that older workers and older entrepreneurs were needed to address the negative social impact of automation and an ageing population, and that older workers were often better placed to start their own businesses than their younger counterparts, many of whom lack contacts, capital and experience.[69]

Judge in 2015

Regarding Brexit, Judge called for Britain to establish a post-Brexit EU trade deal prior to leaving the Union, followed by a transitional period and tariff-free EU-UK trade thereafter.[70] She also called for the British Government to clarify the rights of EU citizens already in the UK and of British citizens living in the EU, and to clarify the extent to which common rules and standards will be upheld with EU counterparts. She believed that "...creativity, confidence and patience" are the defining qualities of entrepreneurship, and that it is with these qualities that Britain will meet the challenges and opportunities of Brexit.[71]

Judge was suspended from the role on 9 March 2018 following press reports of allegations of racism and sexism made against her in the IoD office.[72] The Guardian reported that Judge was "understood to have been recorded covertly by the IoD's director general, Stephen Martin" and to have said, "We have three inexperienced people doing a job [on the IoD's secretariat] when one experienced person could do it and they are making mistakes. And so the problem is we have one black and we have one pregnant woman and that is the worst combination we could possibly have. No, two blacks and one pregnant woman. I couldn't believe it!"[73]

Later the same day, Judge resigned.[74] In her resignation letter she wrote, "I continue to strongly refute the allegations made against me and remain deeply disturbed by the gross and conspiratorial mishandling of the process which has led to the damaging circumstances in which I and the Institute are now placed". Judge also said, "My acknowledgment that issues of race and pregnancy could complicate their removal both legally and from the standpoint of public perception is an observation I believe most lawyers would make, and that many non-lawyers also know to be true. I was addressing the likely consequences of their dismissal, not the reasons for it."[74]

In September 2018, it was announced that Judge would be succeeded by Charlotte Valeur.[75]