Graham Wrigley (1982)

Graham Wrigley came to St John's College in 1982, read Economics and Law, and played rugby very badly. After working at Bain and gaining an MBA from Insead, he was one of the founding partners and members of the management board of Permira, as it grew into a leading global private equity firm.

In 2006, he stepped down from Permira to retrain for a second career in international development by studying Development Economics at SOAS. Since then he has worked in a variety of roles in Africa and South Asia. In 2013, he was appointed Chairman of CDC, the UK government’s private sector development arm. CDC has grown from investing c.£0.2bn to over £1.5bn pa of long term, impact driven capital into some of the poorest countries in the world.

He is also chairman of Sir Edmund Hillary’s Himalayan Trust UK, where has volunteered for over 35 years. Graham was knighted with the Order of St Michael and St George for services to International Development in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020.