with
Guest Speaker Geoff Thompson
Retired International Banker and former
High Sheriff of Rutland
Geoff grew up in Lincolnshire and was a chorister at Lincoln Cathedral. He joined Midland Bank and studied computer programming part-time. After a degree in Finance at Loughborough he followed a 40-year career at the bank covering IT, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Branch and Area Management, Lending, Planning, Strategy, and Risk, moving through the Midlands, London, Canada, and Switzerland, with responsibilities across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North and South America. Geoff was seconded to the London Stock Exchange helping technology companies go public via IPO (adding regulation, public markets, government relations, and PR to his CV). In recognition, he was admitted into the Freedom of the City of London and later invested with the livery of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. He launched HSBC’s first Business Internet Banking but chose a bad day for the global launch (11 September 2001). He survived serious prostate cancer in 2016 and eventually retired in 2018 from European Head of Business Risk for HSBC’s IT & Operations. Geoff insists that he never achieved anything in his career, he was just lucky to have some great people work for him.
Geoff and his wife Janet and son Xander moved from Geneva in 2011, to Uppingham, to a county he knew well from working in Rutland. They threw themselves into community involvement from the start with Geoff becoming involved with Uppingham Community College (Chair); Harington School (Founder Member and Governor); Rutland Learning Trust (Member); Resilient Rutland (Chair), Rutland First; Uppingham First; Uppingham Community Land Trust; Rutland Choral Society; PCDC (Chair); Patient Participation (Chair), Parish Church PCC among others. Janet’s involvement in the community led to her being awarded the BEM in last year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List and an invitation to the Coronation. Geoff has a son, Ian, who lives in New York with his family. In 2022, Geoff was appointed High Sheriff of the county of Rutland for one year, during which he attended 225 official engagements including 24 court and 5 prison visits.