Education
Oriel College.
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David Arculus
Edit ProfileManaging Director Operating Officer
Career
Educated at Bromsgrove School (Wendron House) and Oriel College, University of Oxford and the London Business School, he started his career as a writer and was a producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1968 to 1974. He joined EMAP in 1972, and took it from being a small regional newspaper publisher to a large media group. As a result of these successes Arculus worked his way up to Group Managing Director in 1989, leaving Emap in 1997.
He subsequently became Chief Operating Officer of United News and Media and then became Chairman of IPC Media which at the time was Britain’s largest management buy-out.
Arculus also headed Earls Court and Olympia Limited and is a Non-Executive Director of Pearson PLC
Away from the media sector, he was a Non-Executive Director of Severn Trent plc from 1996, serving as Chairman from 1998 until 2004. Arculus held a range of further non-executive jobs of which perhaps the most noteworthy was with Barclays Bank plc from 1997 to 2006.
He joined the Board of O2 plc in 2003, and in 2006 as Chairman was responsible with the management team for the sale of O2 to Telefónica of Spain. He remains a Director of O2 plc and also of Telefónica and currently leads a number of private equity backed businesses mainly in the media field
From 2002 to 2006 Arculus was Tony Blair’s "Red Tape Czar" as Chairman of the British Government’s Better Regulation Task Force, where he helped bring about a number of regulatory initiatives intended to reduce burdens on business.
These included improved impact assessments. The introduction of common commencement dates and the measurement of administrative burden in the United Kingdom economy which led to government imposing a 25% red tape reduction across all departments. He also led the effort during the United Kingdom Presidency to reduce European Union bureaucratic burdens which resulted in the notable claim from MEPs that "the European Parliament now has nothing to do".
Sir David Arculus is currently Chairman of ExCeL Exhibition Centre.
Membership
Arculus has also been a member of the National Consumer Council and chairs both the Royal Institution and the Advisory Council of The British Library as well as being a Trustee of various charitable organisations.
