Career
He manages the Saint Martin"s in London"s West End and is the current producer of The Mousetrap, the world"s longest running play. He is Chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) Council. Business Waley-Cohen was a financial journalist, at the Daily Mail from 1968-1973, and a founder director and publisher at Euromoney Publications (which later became Euromoney Institutional Investor Public Limited Company) from 1969-1983.
He was involved with the insurance business, including as chairman of Willis Faber & Dumas (Agencies) (part of what became the Willis Group) from 1992-1999, director of the Stewart Wrightson Members Agency Limited 1987-1998 and chairman of Policy Portfolio plc from 1993-1998.
He was chairman of First Call Group plc from 1996-1998 and of Portsmouth & Sunderland Newspaper plc from 1998-1999. He was a director of Exeter Preferred Capital Investment Trust plc 1992–2003.
In 1989 he became managing director of the Victoria Palace, and took on the management of the Saint Martin"son He managed the Vaudeville from 1996–2001 and the Savoy from 1997–2005.
In April 2007 he took over the Ambassadors.
In 2014, he sold the Victoria Palace to Delfont Mackintosh son Martin"s, he had got to know The Mousetrap"s producer, Peter Saunders. In 1997, Waley-Cohen launched the education charity, Mousetrap Projects.
Waley-Cohen stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate in both the General Elections in 1974 for the Manchester Gorton constituency.
Waley-Cohen is Chairman of the RADA Council (a position to which he was elected in September 2007), and Chairman of RADA"s Development Board. He was President of The Society of London from 2002–2005, having been a member since 1984 and a board member since 1993.
He was a Trustee of The s Trust from 1998–2004. He is President of the JCA Charitable Foundation, which supports projects for education, agriculture and tourism in rural areas of Israel such as Galilee and the Negev.
In 2011 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
He was chairman of the British-American Project executive committee from 1989-1992, and continued to have a role in its subsequent development. As a hereditary baronet, Waley-Cohen is styled Sir as part of his baronetcy – the title is not a knighthood.