- IBLF announces interim management arrangements
- Call for global partnership to tackle climate change
- more IBLF news
Robert Davies was the founder and chief executive of the International Business Leaders Forum
1951-2007
Born in 1951, Robert Davies was educated at Brierley Hill in Halesowen. He studied social sciences at Durham University and then at the London School of Economics.
Robert co-founded National Energy Action (NEA) in 1981, an energy conservation organisation. In 1983, Robert moved into the world of television, founding Rainbow Educational TV Productions and producing educational programmes for Channel 4.
Robert joined Business in the Community during the 1980s, working with British companies to improve their contribution to urban regeneration, regional development, education and environmental issues.
In February 1990 he convened a meeting of business leaders in Charleston, South Carolina, with the Prince of Wales as the host, and IBLF was born.
Through IBLF, amongst many other achievements, he founded Digital Partnership to bring affordable access to technology in education and poor communities in Africa; the Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) Global Partnership to combat chronic diseases linked to poor diet and lack of physical activity; and co-founded Youth Business International, now working in 40 countries and helping more than 17,000 young people to establish enterprises.
He has also facilitated partnerships for social, economic and enterprise development in countries as diverse as China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
More recently, he created a blog in which he covered issues ranging from private equity in the UK to social entrepreneurship in India and ghettos in Gaza - www.seeingthepossibilities.com. He was awarded a CMG (Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael & St George) for services to foreign affairs and the IBLF in the UK Millennium Honours list.
He died of cancer in August 2007.