The Right Honourable The Lord Saatchi |
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Chairman of the Conservative Party | |
In office with Liam Fox 10 November 2003 – 20 May 2005 |
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Leader | Michael Howard |
Preceded by | Theresa May |
Succeeded by | Francis Maude |
Personal details | |
Born | 21 June 1946 Baghdad, Iraq |
Political party | Conservative |
Relations | Charles Saatchi (brother) |
Profession | Advertising |
Religion | Jewish |
Maurice Nathan Saatchi, Baron Saatchi (born 21 June 1946) is the co-founder, with his brother Charles, of the advertising agencies Saatchi and Saatchi and M&C Saatchi, where he currently serves as Executive Director.
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Maurice Saatchi is the third of four sons born to Nathan Saatchi and Daisy Ezer, a wealthy Iraqi Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq. Maurice's brothers are David (born 1937), Charles Nathan (born 1943) and Philip (born 1953).[1] Nathan was a successful textile merchant and in 1947, he pre-empted a flight that tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews would soon make to avoid persecution and relocated his family to Finchley[2] London.[3] Nathan purchased two textile mills in north London and after a time re-built a thriving business. Eventually the family would settle into a house with eight bedrooms on Hampstead Lane in Highgate.[1]
Saatchi attended Tollington Grammar and graduated from the London School of Economics with first class honours in 1967.[1] His first job was at Haymarket Publications where Maurice would form valuable relationships with Michael Heseltine, the Group Managing Director and with staff at the Haymarket's leading trade weekly for the ad industry Campaign. He spent three years at Haymarket as Creative Director before leaving to join his brother Charles' fledgling ad agency.
In 1970, Saatchi, with his brother, formed the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi. They are credited with a number of successful advertising campaigns, most notably the "Labour isn't working" posters on behalf of the Conservative Party for the 1979 British general election and advertisements for the cigarette brand Silk Cut.[4] Maurice Saatchi served as chairman of the firm which became the world's largest advertising agency.[5] However, a shareholder revolt in 1994 ended the brothers' role in the company, and they founded a new company, M&C Saatchi, the following year. The new company has also been described as a success.[5]
Maurice Saatchi was created a life peer as Baron Saatchi, of Staplefield in the County of West Sussex in 1996. He sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative. Under the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith, Saatchi served as shadow Treasury spokesman in the Lords, forming a close relationship with the then-Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Michael Howard. Saatchi argued for the simplification of the tax system and that the poorest eight million people in the United Kingdom should not pay income tax.[5]
After Howard became leader of the Conservatives in November 2003, Saatchi was appointed joint chairman of the party with Liam Fox. He had responsibility for running the party campaign for the 2005 general election, after which he stepped down.[6] He published his reflections on the election campaign in a Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet If this is Conservatism, I am a Conservative in a chapter entitled How I Lost the Election. Among his failings listed in the document, Saatchi highlighted the following:
He recommended that future Conservative leaders establish a "moral purpose" as an ideology and future direction for the Party.[7]
He is also chairman of Finsbury Foods plc, and is a Governor of the London School of Economics from where he had graduated with a First class honours degree in Economics. Saatchi is a trustee of the Museum of Garden History, and also a director of the Centre for Policy Studies. He was also a trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1988 to 1996.
He is a previous recipient of the St. George’s Society Medal of Honour. An award established in 1996 which recognizes American and British industry leaders for significant contributions in the fields of business, finance and education.[8]
Saatchi's first wife was Gillian Osband, a children's book editor and writer whom he had had known since childhood and whom he married in 1972. They divorced in 1984 and that same year he married novelist Josephine Hart (1942-2011), whom he first met when they worked together at Haymarket Publications in 1967.[5] She died on 2 July 2011.[9]
His country property is a mock Tudor castle called Old Hall in Sussex built in 1842. There are sixty acres of parkland and ten acres of flowers, trees and lakes. Maurice Saatchi has a fondness for gardening, laid out the garden on the estate and built a conservatory to house semi-tropical plants. The property was the subject of a display article in the January 1995 issue of Architectural Digest.[1]
Maurice Saatchi and his brother Charles were listed at number 366 in the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, with an estimated wealth of £220m in advertising and art.[10] In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009 they were listed at number 438.[11]
Party political offices | ||
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Preceded by Theresa May |
Chairman of the Conservative Party 2003 – 2005 with Liam Fox |
Succeeded by Francis Maude |