Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith

Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith CBE is the President of the CIPD. She is also the Chair of Mind Gym plc and President of the British Chambers of Commerce. She also chairs the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education and the Air Operators Association and is a Non-Executive Director for the Tideway Tunnel.

Ruby joined strategic outsourcing company MITIE in 2002 as Chief Financial Officer then Chief Operating Officer and was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in 2007. She is one of a small number of women who have held the position of Chief Executive in the FTSE 250 and is the first Asian woman to be appointed in such a role within that group of companies. She was recognised as a top 50 female world business leader by the FT in 2013.

Ruby was an Independent Non-Executive Director of PageGroup plc from 2007 to 2017. She chaired the Audit Committee, was a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees and also latterly their Senior Independent Director. She was the Chair of the UK Government’s Women’s Business Council between 2012 and 2016 and a Business Ambassador for the UK from 2012 to 2019.

Ruby is a member of the House of Lords, having been granted a Life Peerage in 2015 and is a member of the Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee. She is responsible for the 2017 Independent Report to the UK Government on Race in the Workplace and was appointed by the UK Government to be the In-Work Progression Commissioner in 2020. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award in 2015, the profession’s most prestigious award. Ruby has received honorary doctorates from Cranfield University, Kingston University and the University of the West of England.

Ruby was appointed as CIPD President and Board member in December 2021.