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Revision as of 09:15, 24 February 2018
 Ben Goldsmith       (Financier and environmentalist) | |
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| Born | Benjamin James Goldsmith 28 October 1980 London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Eton College |
| Parents | • Sir James Goldsmith • Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart |
| Children | 5 |
| Spouse | • Kate Rothschild • Jemima Jones |
| Member of | Goldsmith family, WEF/Young Global Leaders/2010 |
Ben Goldsmith (born 28 October 1980) is an English financier and environmentalist. The son of financier James Goldsmith and Lady Annabel Goldsmith he is founder and CEO of London-listed investment firm Menhaden, which focuses on the theme of energy and resource efficiency. Previously he co-founded the sustainability-focused investment firm WHEB, whose private equity business split away in 2014 and now trades under the name Alaina Partners. He has used his personal wealth to support both philanthropic and political projects in the area of the environment and sustainability.
He had a high-profile marriage to Rothschild heiress Kate Emma Rothschild which ended in 2012. The split gained tabloid headlines in the UK after being dubbed the first "Twitter Divorce" for playing out on social media via posts on Twitter."[1]
Personal life
Ben Goldsmith was born in London and is the youngest child of the late billionaire James Goldsmith, a member of the prominent Goldsmith family and his third wife Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart.[2] He has an older sister, Jemima Khan, and an older brother, Zac Goldsmith, and several half-siblings,[3] His brother Zac has had a strong influence on him,[4] and his brother has a passion for the environment inherited from their father, who, towards the end of his life, was one of Europe’s most prominent founders of green causes, including to campaigns against genetically modified food.[5] His uncle Teddy Goldsmith was a co-founder of the Green Party UK and also of The Ecologist.[6][7]:228–9
On 20 September 2003, at St Mary's Church in Bury St Edmunds, he married heiress Kate Emma Rothschild (b. 1982), the daughter of the late Amschel Rothschild and his wife, Anita Patience Guinness, of the Guinness Brewery family. Their wedding was attended by 600 guests, with many blue-blooded and Old Etonian friends, among them Lord Frederick Windsor.
The couple have three children: Iris Annabel (b. 2004), Frank James Amschel (b. 2005) and Isaac Benjamin Victor (b. 2008). On 2 June 2012 it was revealed that Kate, a music producer, had been having an extramarital affair with rapper Jay Electronica for a year. Goldsmith, who was arrested for slapping his wife over the matter, said that he would be filing for divorce.[8] The Goldsmiths' 2012 divorce proceedings made headlines in tabloid media as the first "Twitter Divorce" for playing out on social media via posts on Twitter.[9]
On 19 December 2014, he married Jemima Jones (b. 1987) in London, his girlfriend of two years. Jemima runs the catering company 'Tart London'. The couple have two children: Eliza Margot (b. 2016) and Arlo Edward Zac (b. 2017). [10]
Career
He attended Eton College, an independent English Public school, and like his billionaire father, Ben Goldsmith did not attend university.[4] After he graduated, he travelled, then became a trainee at private-client broker Hargreave Hale and then worked for the Quintessentially Group concierge business.[4] In the meantime, he began investing with his uncle Teddy in environmental businesses.[4]
In 2003,[11] Goldsmith became a partner in WHEB, and led the pivot of that company, which had been founded in 1995, from serving as a corporate finance adviser into providing venture capital to the European clean technology sector.[12] WHEB also owned Ruston WHEB, which in 2009 was the leading executive search firm in the European cleantech sector.[4]. In 2014 Ben oversaw the demerger of WHEB’s private and public equity businesses, with the former rebranding Alpina Partners, before launching his own green-themed investment trust, Menhaden Capital Plc, listed on the main London stock exchange.
In 2003 Goldsmith also helped found the UK Environmental Funders Network (EFN).[13][14][15] Goldsmith described EFN as being "designed to facilitate discussion and foster collaboration" among those interested in funding environmental initiatives, particularly those addressing large-scale problems like global warming.[16] As part of its work EFS gathers information on environmental giving and disseminates it via its "Where Green Grants Went" report.[17]:34
Through JMG Foundation, the family foundation that he chairs,[13][14] he is also directly involved in activist environmental philanthropy.[15][16]. He is also a Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, one of the leading environmental foundations in Europe, founded by financier and philanthropist Chris Hohn.
Ben Goldsmith was described by London's Evening Standard in 2011 as "the quiet force of the Goldsmith family...believed to be a key figure in looking after the family finances."[12]
Politics
Ben has been a long standing founder of the Green Party, including giving £20,000.00 in 2004 to the UK Green Party and again prior to the 2010 General Election in which Caroline Lucas became Britain's first elected Green Member of Parliament.[18] In subsequent years Goldsmith has also contributed generously to the UK Conservative Party as well as individual candidates like Conservative MP Michael Gove and the so-called "Notting Hill set of Conservative modernisers".
Goldsmith is chair of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) which was founded in 2010.[19] The CEN which seeks to raise the issue of environmental protection on the agenda of the UK Conservative Party.[14]
At a talk at the UK Centre for Jewish Life in 2013, Ben Goldsmith said that a Zionist is simply someone who believes that the Jews have a right to have their own state in Israel, and therefore described himself as an "ardent Zionist."[20]
In 2016 he campaigned for his brother Zac Goldsmith who was running for mayor of London.
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Ben Goldsmith and his "party people": Friends in low places | Article | 19 December 2017 | "Just had a glimpse of Corbyn’s Britain. A birthday party for my sister-in-law in Notting Hill invaded and shut down by a vicious bottle-throwing hard Leftist crowd (from the Grenfell march), because they could." |
References
- ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ Billionaire: The Life and Times of Sir James Goldsmith by Ivan Fallon
- ↑ thePeerage.com – Person Page 5917
- ↑ a b c d e Chris Blackhurst for MailOnline. 14 January 2009 Profile: Ben Goldsmith, by Chris Blackhurst, This is Money (UK), 14 January 2009.
- ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ Nilima Choudhury for Responding to Climate Change. 19 August 2013 Ben Goldsmith: it’s possible to be green and conservative
- ↑ Meredith Veldman. Fantasy, the Bomb, and the Greening of Britain. Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0521440608
- ↑
{{URL|example.com|optional display text}} - ↑ Rothschild heiress finally realises playing out her marriage split on Twitter is a bad idea and calls a truce with Goldsmith husband, UK Daily Mail, 7 June 2012.
- ↑ EXCLUSIVE: Goldsmith heir weds former model just two years after his Rothschild heiress wife dumped him for rapper, UK Daily Mail, 20 December 2014.
- ↑ Alex Blackburne for Blue & Green Tomorrow. 27 January 2014 Leading sustainable investor WHEB on its new branding
- ↑ a b Christopher SIlvester for the Evening Standard. 13 May 2011 "The Goldsmith supremacy: London's most compelling dynasty"
- ↑ a b Alex Blackburne for Blue & Green Tomorrow. 27 January 2014 Ben Goldsmith on fixing the environmental crisis through philanthropy
- ↑ a b c World Economic Forum. Benjamin Goldsmith profile at World Economic Forum Page accessed 27 June 2015
- ↑ a b Bloomberg Ben Goldsmith profile at Bloomberg Page accessed 27 June 2015
- ↑ a b Ben Goldsmith for Philanthropy U.K. Magazine. 23 August 2010. Philanthropy in a climate of change
- ↑ Intelligent Funding Forum. March 2012 Funding for the future: how all grant-makers can help to create a greener world
- ↑ [1], by Alex Blackburne, Blue and Green, 7 August 2013.
- ↑ Ben Caldecott and Gavin Dick in the Telegraph. 10 Mar 2010 David Cameron's environmentalism will succeed where Labour's failed. Quote: "That is why the Conservative Environment Network, which launches today, has been formed. We are determined to support the current environmental leadership the Conservative Party is showing and to make the case to other Conservatives who may not recognise our Party’s proud environmental heritage."
- ↑ Centre for Jewish Life. 3 July 2013. Ben Goldsmith: The Green Revolutionary. Entrepreneurship, Environment & Impressions from Israel Centre for Jewish Life Business Forum
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