The Commissioners

Jenny Watson joined us in January 2009 as our second Chair. She is a non-Executive Director of WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme). She is also a trustee of the Charities Aid Foundation.

Jenny is also a current board member of the charity Money Advice Trust. She was the last Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission prior to the creation of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, and is a past Deputy Chairman of both the Banking Code Standards Board, and of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. She has also worked in a number of human rights organisations, including Liberty and Charter88.

Max Caller has served as Chief Executive and Returning Officer in three London boroughs and was the London Regional Returning Officer for the 1999 European Parliamentary elections; he has also served as an elections observer abroad. Max is also, separately, Chair of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, formerly part of the Electoral Commission, and the interim Chair of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales (22 July 2011 - 31 March 2012).

Anna Carragher is a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and a Commissioner for the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. She is also a member of the Board of the Arts Council for Northern Ireland and a Trustee of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. She has worked as a journalist and producer for the BBC in London and Northern Ireland on programmes including Today, Newsnight, Question Time and Any Questions, and as Editor of European and Correspondent Programmes. She was Head of Programmes for BBC Northern Ireland from 1995 to 2001 and Controller, BBC Northern Ireland from 2001 to 2006. She joined the Electoral Commission on 1st January 2012.

Tony Hobman joined us in January 2010. He has held a number of senior appointments within the financial services arena. He spent twenty years with Barclays Bank, holding a number of key roles in marketing, project and change management and customer services.

In 1996 he joined ProShare as Head of Investor Services and was promoted to Chief Executive in 1999. From 2000 to 2001 he was Chief Executive of Money Channel plc.

In 2002 he was appointed Chief Executive designate of the Pensions Regulator and in April 2005 he began work as the first Chief Executive of the Pensions Regulator, where he stayed until May 2010.

He was appointed as the first Chief Executive of the Money Advice Service, a newly created organisation to promote financial understanding, under the auspices of the Financial Services Authority, and took up post on 17 May 2010.

John McCormick is our Commissioner with responsibility for Scotland. He was Secretary of the BBC and subsequently Controller of BBC Scotland. He has been Chair of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and is currently Vice-Chair of Scottish Opera, and a Director of the Irvine Bay Regeneration Company. Until November 2010 he was a non-executive director of Lloyds TSB Scotland.

He was a member of the Commission into Boundary Differences and Voting Systems. He has been awarded Honorary doctorates from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde and the West of Scotland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Sir George Reid is a Privy Councillor, a former SNP MP and MSP and was Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament from 2003-07.Between Westminster and Holyrood he was Director of Public Affairs of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva. From 2007-09 he chaired the Strategic Review of Governance in the Northern Ireland Assembly. He was appointed Chair of the Statutory Remuneration Committee for Wales with effect from 22 September 2010. He has five honorary doctorates and today is a visiting professor at Glasgow and Stirling Universities, specialising in Citizenship. In June 2011 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Clackmannanshire. He was the Independent Adviser to the First Minister on the Scottish Ministerial Code in 2008–2011. Sir George was knighted in the Birthday Honours 2012 for services to Scottish politics and public life.