Background
Lovegrove was born in 1966, the second child of John and Zenia Stewart Lovegrove. His father was a Warwickshire industrialist and entrepreneur.
Lovegrove was born in 1966, the second child of John and Zenia Stewart Lovegrove. His father was a Warwickshire industrialist and entrepreneur.
Lovegrove was educated at Warwick School and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first class degree in English in 1989.
He was announced as the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence on 9 March 2016. Between 1990 and 1994 Lovegrove worked for Hydra Associates, a strategic media consultancy. In 1995, he joined Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (subsequently Deutsche Bank), where he remained until 2004 and became head of the European media team
In April 2004, he joined the Shareholder Executive, becoming acting Chief Executive on 27 June 2007 and Chief Executive on 18 April 2008.
In that capacity, he was also appointed to the Board of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and acts as chairman of (the no longer trading) British Nuclear Fuels Limited.
His appointment as Permanent Secretary of the Department of Energy and Climate Change was announced on 7 January 2013 and he took up post on 4 February 2013. As of 2015, Lovegrove was paid a salary of between £165,000 and £169,999 by the department, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.
Lovegrove was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (Central Bank) in the 2013 New Year Honours. In 1997, Lovegrove married the screen-writer Kate Brooke.
They have two daughters and live in London.