Profile: Business chief who spent two years at heart of government

It is regarded as one of the best books of recent times and won a Nobel Prize for its author Herman Hesse. Roger Marsh read it as a student at Leeds University. It aroused in him a lifelong interest in politics

and positioning.

"I have always been interested in how people move around the organisational chess board," he said. "Some do it very delicately and deftly and some rather brutally."

He was fascinated by the Godfather films of Francis Ford Coppola.

"Who is the most powerful man in the Mafia? Everybody would say it's the godfather. I don't think so. The most powerful man in the Mafia is the consiglieri because he moves from godfather to godfather

to godfather.

"His role is the key adviser, the person people default to for the best possible way of going forward. In a funny sort of way, that resonates with what I do as a day job."

After university, Mr Marsh joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountancy firm, and spent three decades in business recovery, working on diverse assignments at Sheffield Forgemasters, Bradford Cathedral, a power station in North Wales and a commercial bank in Canada. He learned important lessons about real economics, leadership and human nature.

"First, there are natural cycles to business and you have to keep looking at what is the next cycle if you are going to sustain a business throughout.

"Second, without good management, even the best business idea will not achieve an optimal result. Third, you must listen to and assess the qualities of the people running the business."

A life-changing moment arrived in 2007, which gave him the chance to experience life close to the top of Britain's most powerful institution. He was persuaded to put his name forward for secondment to the Cabinet Office.

"The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, wanted somebody to come from outside to provide some outside world experience in the inside of what is the centre of government," said Mr Marsh.

He had some reservations, unsure if it was a world he could inhabit successfully. He met Sir Gus, the UK's most powerful civil servant, and the two former grammar school boys got on well. He agreed to join the executive board as director general of strategic finance and operations, initially for a six- month period.

The Cabinet Office acts as a head office of government, with duties to support the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and strengthen the Civil Service.

"It's a lot of many things," said Mr Marsh. "At one extreme it's covering the likes of social exclusion; to the other end, the most important intelligence and security matters affecting the nation and beyond.

"Government departments are not islands on their own; they are inter-linked and the Cabinet Office is at the fulcrum of it and together with Treasury forms the centre of government. The other interesting thing about the Cabinet Office is, within it, is Number 10 and all that goes

on there."

Mr Marsh said he was brought in to help improve business planning and prioritisation and to allocate decreasing resources while measuring the effectiveness of the department's activities.

"Trying to run an economy is not quite as easy as a lot of commentators would make out," he said. "There's a lot of complex formulas at work and it's balancing between the needs of today and the provision of public services and protection of our way of life and development of our social structure over the next 10, 20 and 30 years."

In the end, the secondment lasted two-and-a-half years before he decided to return to PwC.

"I had done as much as I felt I was able to do and it was for them to take it forward themselves. It was one of the most fascinating, at times frustrating, but illuminating and, above all, most privileged periods of my career.

"To be allowed at the centre of government to witness the processes that take place when you transition from one Prime Minister to another, the challenges of dealing with an economy, to see what goes

on from the inside... I feel incredibly privileged to have had that experience."

Getting under the skin of the problems facing the Civil Service and its political masters set him thinking about the difficult decisions facing the UK and its gaping budget deficit.

The debt crisis presents an opportunity to redefine the role of government, what public services should be today and what they need to be for tomorrow, he said.

"We're at a really interesting crossroads. Since 1997, there has been an ever-increasing amount of money available to meet needs. Now we are going the other way. This is about what do we absolutely need, rather than what we would like to have.

"The electorate is complicit in this, because there is an expectation that government has to solve everything. At the end of the day, the money has got to come from somewhere. How it is applied for the

best possible outcomes is the challenge."

For example, he said the country needs to consider what sort of health care it should provide to an ever-ageing population, whether the education system is producing enough graduates to help move the UK economy towards strategic, advanced manufacturing and if a welfare system that traps people in worklessness is fit for purpose.

"We do have some big challenges out there. In not too many years from now the fourth biggest cost to our economy will be the cost of debt – not repaying debt – but the interest on that debt. Bigger than our defence budget."

He described the people he met in the upper echelons of the Civil Service as incredibly talented and clever, but noted that many had risen through the grades during a period rich in resources.

"They have got to grapple with the challenge of persuading politicians that rather than 'Yes Minister, I'm afraid it's no Minister'. There's going to be some tough battles, for the good of all."

Now back at PwC in Leeds, he leads the firm's government and public sector work across the North. Mr Marsh also leads a group of partners advising HM Revenue & Customs and the Department of Work and Pensions. And the 57-year-old was voted on to the supervisory board of PwC's UK business.

Outside of work, he spends a lot of time with his family and is the father of five daughters. He collects fine wines, although he's not a big drinker, preferring to see his friends enjoy drinking "history in a bottle".

He has always had a passion for fast cars and as a boy growing up in Stockton-on-Tees dreamed of owning a Ferrari. He bought one, a 355 Berlinetta, for his 50th birthday.

If he ever has a bad day and wonders what it's all about, he walks into his garage, looks at the gleaming sports car and thinks to himself, "that's what it's all about".

ROGER MARSH

Title: Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Born: September 19, 1953.

Education: Stockton C of E Grammar School, Metallurgy degree.

First job: Petrol pump attendant.

Favourite song: M People, Search for the Hero.

Favourite film: Pretty Woman.

Favourite holiday destination: Parrot Cay, Turks & Caicos.

Last book read: The Making of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr.