Simon Murray
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Simon Murray (born 25 March 1940) is a British businessman, author, former French Foreign Legionnaire, and bon vivant.
Murray was born in Leicester, England into a family with some tradition of military service [1]. In 1960, he joined the French Foreign Legion, and served for five years in the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP). During his service, he fought in the Algerian War against the guerillas of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN).
After rising to the rank of Chief Corporal, he turned down an offer to attend Officers School in France, and left the Legion in 1965. Murray soon after began his business career with the firm of Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, where he rose to managing director of their trading firm. He joined Hutchison Whampoa in 1984 as a Group Managing Director. He resigned from Hutchison in September, 1993. He then joined Deutsche Bank as an executive chairman in its Asia Pacific Division, and went on to found Simon Murray & Associates. His business career has been based in Hong Kong and focused on East Asia. He also set up General Enterprise Management Services Limited (GEMS), a Hong Kong-based private equity investment arm, which manages and advises funds on direct investments in the Asia-Pacific region. On 1 July 2007 he was appointed as a non-executive director of Vodaphone Group PLC. He also maintains positions on the Boards of Cheung Kong, Compagnie Financière Richemont and Macquarie (HK) Limited, as well as being an Advisory Board Member of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. In addition, he sits on the Advisory Board of Imperial College in London.
In 1978, Murray published a memoir of his years in the French Foreign Legion, called Legionnaire: An Englishman in the French Foreign Legion. In 2002, the memoir was made into a movie called "Simon: An English Legionnaire".
He married long-time sweetheart, the former Jennifer Mather, with whom he has three children. Jennifer Murray was the first woman to fly around the world in a helicopter and in 2004 Simon, at the age of 63, was the oldest man to reach the South Pole unsupported.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Murray, Simon (2006). Legionnaire, xv. ISBN 0-89141-887-3.
