Businessman Chief Executive Officer
Soames was born in Croydon, Surrey, to Lord and Lady Soames. He is a grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, a nephew of the former Defence Secretary Duncan Sandys and Diana Churchill. The journalist Randolph Churchill and the actress and dancer Sarah Churchill and a great-nephew of the founders of the Scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell and Olave Baden-Powell.
Soames was educated at Saint Aubyns Preparatory School in Rottingdean, East Sussex and Eton College, and then Worcester College at the University of Oxford, during which time he worked as a DJ at the London nightclub Annabel"s, as well as being elected to the Presidency of the Oxford Union.
Upon graduation, he was offered a position at General Electric Company (General Electric Company) by the managing director Arnold Weinstock. He remained at General Electric Company for 15 years, working in the company"s avionics and computing divisions, and became managing director of Avery Berkel, running the company"s United Kingdom, India, Asia and Africa operations. After leaving General Electric Company in 1997, Soames joined the software company Misys as chief executive of its Midas-Kapiti division.
He was promoted to chief executive of the Banking and Securities Division in June 2000.
Soames was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2010 New Year Honours. In November 2010 Rupert Soames gave a speech to Holyrood in which he warned, "In the United Kingdom, we are already close to the rocks, because, over the next 8 years a third of our coal-fired capacity, two-thirds of our oil-fired capacity, and nearly three-quarters of our nuclear capacity will be closed down either through age or the impact of the European Large Combustion Plant Directive.
Absent a massive and immediate programme of building new power stations, with concrete being poured in the next two years, we will be in serious danger of the lights going out.".
