Peter Harkness

Peter Martin Harkness (born May 1949) is a British media entrepreneur and investor. Formerly a journalist, he is senior independent director of the business data specialist GlobalData plc.[2] Harkness is also chairman of The Cheltenham Trust, an arts charity that manages five iconic arts, performance and leisure venues in Cheltenham.

Peter Harkness
Born
Peter Martin Harkness

May 1949 (age 71)[1]
Hoylake, Wirral
NationalityBritish
Occupationentrepreneur and investor

Early life and childhood

Born in Hoylake, Wirral, he attended grammar schools in Stanley, County Durham and Rugeley, Staffordshire, but left school at 16 to become an apprentice in a newspaper office.

Professional career

After a 15 year spell as a journalist in the West Midlands, Harkness became deputy editor of the Sunday Mercury when he switched to newspaper management. He became managing director of the London Newspaper Group after acquiring it from Yattendon Investment Trust in a 1985.[3]

Harkness joined media company Magicalia in the early 2000s and led management teams which have acquired and sold a series of media companies,[3] including the Butler Group, which was sold to Datamonitor for £11 million,[4] the Midlands magazine group WHY Publications sold to the Daily Mail group for £14 million[5] and Precise Media, sold to Phoenix Equity Partners for £42 million.[6]

He retired after nine years as Chairman of the listed investment fund, Chrysalis VCT[7] in 2017 and as chairman of the publishing and e-commerce group My Time Media Holdings, which he co-founded and owned with CEO Owen Davies[8] in 2018.

Philanthropy

In 2009, concerned at the continuing dominance of privately educated pupils from the South of England being accepted at Oxbridge colleges, Harkness and his wife Sara founded a series of bursaries and prizes to encourage applicants from Yorkshire and the North East to apply for places at Mansfield College, Oxford University.[9] This initiative was in support of Mansfield's Widening Access campaign through which the College had by 2019 seen the percentage of state school pupils admitted to Mansfield rise to 96.1%.[10]

References
  1. CompanyCheck.uk. Peter Harkness. Retrieved 31 May 2017.
  2. "Board of Directors". GlobalData. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  3. Sherwood, Bob (21 December 2006). "Editor who joined the dark side" – via Financial Times.
  4. "Datamonitor buys Butler". 5 January 2005.
  5. "Why advertising papers sold to Daily Mail owners for pounds 14m. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  6. "3i sells Precise to Phoenix Equity Partners". 3i Group. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  7. "Chrysalis VCT chairman steps down , 3 Oct 2017 08:23 | Shares Magazine". www.sharesmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  8. Burridge, Sam. "Hobby and Craft magazines - MyTime Media". MyTimeMedia. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  9. "Ten years of the Harkness Awards at Mansfield | Mansfield College, Oxford". www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
  10. "Feedback | Mansfield College, Oxford". www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
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