Tim Waterstone

Education

Tim Waterstone was educated at Tonbridge School and Street Catharine"s College, Cambridge, where he read English.

Career

Waterstones now employs 4,500 staff, is the largest specialist bookseller in Europe, with stores in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland, and is the third largest bookseller in the world. He then went to India where he worked for a broking firm in Calcutta. Upon his return to England he worked as a marketing manager for Allied Breweries, 1964-1973 and then West.H. Smith, 1973-1981.

He left the group in 2001.

In 2003 he co-founded Bookberry, the Moscow booksellers. He chaired Shelter"s 25th Anniversary Appeal, and in 1999 chaired the Department of Trade & Industry Working Group on Smaller Quoted Companies and Private Investors.

He served as Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University (2007 – 2015). He was the Bishop"s nominee to the Southwark Cathedral Council (2012).

He was a Labour Party donor in the 1997 and 2001 general election campaigns, and was one of the signatories of the letter from 67 business leaders to the Financial Times in 1997 calling for a Labour Party election victory.

Achievements

• He founded the bookselling chain Waterstone"s in 1982, and became the founder chairman of HMV Media Group in 1998, which merged the businesses of Waterstone"s and HMV. He is the co-founder of Bookaid, has sat on the Booker Prize Management Committee, and acted as the Chairman Of Judges for the Prince’s Youth Business Trust Awards.

Membership

Meanwhile, he was a chairman or board member of English International (1987-1992), the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1990-1997), Portman House Trust (1994-1996), the Academy of Ancient Music (1990-1995), Virago Press (1993-1995), Jazz FM (1991-1993), the London International Festival of Theatre (1990-1992), the Elgar Foundation (1992-1998), the British Library (1995-1997), King"s College London Library (2000-2002), Yale University Press (1992-2013), Chelsea Stores (1996–2007), FutureStart (1992–2009), Virago Press (1995–1996), Hill Samuel United Kingdom Emerging Companies Investment Trust plc (1996–2000) and Downing Classic VCT (1998–2003). He served as a member of the visiting committee of Cambridge University Library (2007 – 2013).