Colin Matthews (businessman)

Colin Stephen Matthews CBE FREng (born 20 April 1956) is a British businessman, and the Chairman of Highways England, a position he has held since 2014.

He attended the independent Oundle School in north Northamptonshire. He is the son of Sir Peter Matthews, the former boss of Vickers, and was born in Canada. He holds dual Canadian-British nationality.

In 1977 he gained a First Class MA degree in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. In 1984 he gained an MBA from INSEAD, a famous business school in France. He became a Chartered Engineer.

He started out on an engineering apprenticeship at Lucas Girling, a brakes manufacturer, in Birmingham, in 1977.

He joined GE in 1988.

In 1997 he became Managing Director of the engineering division of British Airways. As Technical Director, he left British Airways in 2001.

In 2008 he became Chief Executive of BAA plc, renamed Heathrow Airport Holdings in 2012. In 2010 it was reported he had had a £151,000 pay-rise. He announced his resignation from Heathrow Airport Holdings on 1 April 2014 when he announced he would leave the company later that year. Heathrow is Europe's busiest airport.

On 21 July 2014 he was appointed as Chairman of the Highways Agency, which became Highways England in December 2014. He took up his position at the Highways Agency on 1 September 2014. As of 2015, Matthews was paid a salary of between £130,000 and £134,999 by the agency for his part-time rôle, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.

He is married with four children. He has a French wife, Florence. In 2015 he became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He lives in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, with another house in France. He enjoys sailing in Cornwall. He is a devout Christian.

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