Chris has a lifetime of experience of owning, managing, and navigating ships, often in remote places.
- Trained and qualified as a Merchant Navy officer.
- Revolutionised ferry transport in the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland.
- Sailed a 95 ft. landing craft to Mozambique and, with two such craft, ran a programme of aid deliveries to people displaced by the war who had fled to islands and isolated coastal communities.
- Founded and ran an aid agency specialising in marine operations and undertook projects in diverse places such as Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Nicaragua, DRC.
- Explored the long-closed river route between Malawi and the Indian Ocean via the Shire River and Zambezi and remains one of the only people alive to have done that.
- Undertook the pre-privatisation study of the shipping company on Lake Malawi, and then took the company over from the Government and ran it for private interests.
Back in the UK, he has continued his interest in innovating new ferry services. He became Chair of Business Forum South West, but their interests being identical to those of SWBC, their activities were subsumed. He speaks French, Portuguese, some Spanish and has some knowledge of other languages.
Organisation: Chairman at Heart of the SW Business Forum