Rev Paul Flowers
Chair, The Co-operative Banking Group

Paul Flowers is the Chair of the Co-operative Banking Group and the senior Deputy Chair of the Co-operative Group, covering all of the businesses run by the Co-operative.

He is additionally the Chair of the Co-operative's Remuneration and Appointments Committee. A Minister of the Methodist Church for almost 40 years, he serves as a Trustee of the body which looks after all the Church's invested funds and property in the UK.

Paul has recently retired as a Labour Party Councillor on the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council - serving for 10 years - where he specialised in quasi-judicial matters and was a member of the Council's Executive.

He served as the Chair of the Lifeline Project - which works in the field of drug abuse and dependency - for 14 years; was Vice-Chair of the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux and a member of the Advertising Standards Authority. In 2010 he was appointed by the Leader of the Opposition to the Labour Party's Finance and Industry Board.

Paul said: 'As an out gay man for all of my adult life I am acutely aware of the issues surrounding HIV. Like many others I have been personally affected by it in ways which are often far too painful to recount. I am delighted to have the opportunity to serve as a Trustee of the finest and most cutting-edge charity in this field, and hope that I may be able to contribute from my own experience to the work which THT does.'