Digby Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham
British businessman and politician (born 1955)
Digby Marritt Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham, (born 28 October 1955) is a British businessman and politician who served as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) from 2000 to 2006, and Minister of State for Trade from 2007 to 2008. He sat in the House of Lords as a non-aligned active crossbencher until 2020.
Career
Education and business career
Jones was born on 28 October 1955 in Birmingham, England. He was educated at Bromsgrove School where he was Head Boy. From 1974 until 1977, Jones read law at University College London on a Royal Navy University Cadetship as a Sub-Lieutenant, graduating with upper second class honours. After graduation, Jones worked for 20 years at Edge & Ellison, a firm of lawyers based in Birmingham, culminating in serving as Senior Partner from 1995 to 1998.
Jones was Chairman of the West Midlands Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and became the first serving regional chairman to be appointed CBI's Director-General, serving from 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2006. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2005 New Year Honours for services to Business. He then acted as an adviser to Barclays Capital, Ford Motor Company, Deloitte and JCB. In November 2006, Jones was appointed "Business Adviser" to the Duke of York, receiving £1,000 a month from the royal payroll for working one day a month. This position ended upon his appointment as a Minister in July 2007.
The public source identifies “Digby Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham” as british businessman and politician (born 1955). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Digby, Jones and Baron.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24039. The first chronological checks are 1955, 2000, 2006 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Digby Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.