Giles Clarke

Charles Giles Clarke, CBE (born 29 May 1953 in Bristol) is an English businessman and cricket administrator, and former chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Born in Bristol, Clarke was educated at Rugby School. He then went studied at Oriel College, University of Oxford where graduated with an MA in Persian with Arabic; reportedly he paid his way through by way of his exploits at gambling. He then spent a year at the University of Damascus Arabic language school.

Clarke began his career as an investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston. In 1981 he bought from receivership the assets of what was to become Majestic Wine, where, as chairman, he built it into a UK national chain. From August 1987 to May 1988, Clarke was chairman of Majestic Wine Corporation Inc, a United States company which owned a chain of 104 stores trading as Liquor Barn in California and Arizona. Following disposal of the US based businesses, he sold the UK plc business of Majestic Wines for £15 million in 1989.

In 1990, Clarke founded Pet City, where, as CEO, he built it into a chain of 94 stores (also dressing up at Xmas in the Swindon Store). After making the business public in 1995, he sold the business for £150 million in 1996 to US based PetsMart. In 1998, Clarke founded Safestore, building it into the UK's third largest self storage company, selling it to Bridgepoint Capital for £44million in August 2003. In 1999 Mr Clarke became CEO of Stepstone, an online career portal. Since he came on board, the company has raised NKr1.8bn ($197m) from the IPO in 2000 and grew from four countries and 200 employees to a staff of 1,385 in 18 countries.

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