About Us
Chair and Chief Executive
Christine Farnish
Christine Farnish became Chair of Consumer Focus in late 2010, having served on the Board and chaired the Audit and Risk Committee since 2007.
Christine’s varied career has spanned both public and private sectors. She recently stepped down as Managing Director Public Policy for Barclays Group. Prior to that she was Chief Executive, National Association of Pension Funds; Consumer Director, FSA; Consumer Director, OFTEL; and also held senior roles in Local Government.
Christine currently also Chairs the Family and Parenting Institute and serves as a Civil Service Commissioner. She is on the Boards of ABTA and Aggregate Industries.
She formerly served on the Boards of the Office of Fair Trading, ING Direct, the Advertising Standards Authority and Papworth NHS Trust. Christine Farnish – Declaration of Interest – May 12 (PDF 123KB)
Mike O’Connor – Chief Executive
Mike has held Chief Executive roles at the Olympic Lottery Distributor and the Millennium Commission. Mike was responsible for an investment programme totalling more than £4,000 million covering major public infrastructure projects including those in arts and sport. He has also worked at a senior level in both Government and the voluntary sector. His early career was in the Department of Health, HM Treasury and Cabinet Office. Posts in the Civil service included Private Secretary to the Minister of Health. His duties ranged from general policy development to negotiating on European Community Directives.
He has also been the Director of a campaigning organisation, the Coronary Prevention Group. Other jobs included Director for Developed Economies at Consumers International (formerly the International Organisation of Consumer Unions) which is an international federation of consumer bodies which campaigns for consumers’ rights across the world. He has degrees in natural and social science and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has sat on the boards of a number of voluntary organisations and for the last eight years he was Hon Treasurer the Mental Health Foundation.
He has degrees in natural and social science. He received a CBE in The Queen’s Birthday Honour’s List 2000.
