CBI deputy director moves up into top role

John Cridland will take over as director general at the end of

January when Richard Lambert steps down after five years in the post.

A long list of 45 candidates, including nine women, was whittled down to 18, before it was narrowed to six lead contenders – five men and one woman.

CBI president Helen Alexander said: "With all eyes on the business community to lead our country's economic recovery, the role of CBI director general has never been more important.

"The nomination panel and I were looking for someone with an extraordinary mix of communication, influencing, intellectual and leadership skills."

Mr Cridland said: "I am absolutely delighted to have been chosen to lead the CBI at this critical time for business.

"There are many challenges ahead in getting the economy growing and no one thinks that securing the UK's economic future will be easy, but business people across the country are rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the job."

Mr Cridland, 49, was educated at Boston Grammar School and has an MA in history from Christ's College, Cambridge. He joined the CBI as a policy adviser in 1982 and became the CBI's youngest director in 1991, when he took over the environmental affairs brief.

He moved on to human resources policy in 1995, and has been deputy director-general since 2000.

Former CBI director general Lord Digby Jones said: "John's knowledge, experience, popularity, contacts and prodigious hard work and application to the task will make an enormous contribution to the country in the hard years ahead."