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Suzanne Heywood

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The Right Honourable
The Lady Heywood of Whitehall
CBE
Born
Suzanne Elizabeth Cook

(1969-02-25) 25 February 1969 (age 55)
NationalityBritish
Alma materSomerville College, Oxford
King's College, Cambridge
OccupationBusiness executive
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1997; died 2018)​
Children3
Websitesuzanneheywood.com

Suzanne Elizabeth Heywood, Baroness Heywood of Whitehall, CBE (née Cook; born 25 February 1969), is a British executive and former civil servant. She has been the chief operating officer of the Exor Group since 2022 and the chair of CNH Industrial since 2018. She is also the chair of Iveco Group.

Having sailed around the world with her family as a child for a decade, she studied at Somerville College, Oxford and King's College, Cambridge. Her early career was spent as a civil servant in HM Treasury. She then joined McKinsey & Company, where she rose to become a senior partner before leaving for Exor in 2016.

In the 2024 Birthday Honours, Suzanne Heywood was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to business leadership.[1]

Early life and education

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Suzanne Cook was born on 25 February 1969 in Southampton, England, to teachers Gordon Cook and Mary, née Brindley.[2] Having sold the family house and a family-owned hotel, and initially sponsored by a hotel group,[3] from 1976 to 1986 the Cooks sailed around the world in a schooner called Wavewalker, retracing initially the third and final voyage of the eighteenth-century explorer and cartographer Captain Cook (to whom they were not related despite the shared surname). Although three years were planned for the sailing, they ended up spending a decade doing so.[4][2][5] In 1977, the ship was almost destroyed in a storm between Africa and Australia.[5][6] Cook was below deck and received a serious head injury eventually requiring seven surgeries, but the rest of her family and crew received only minor injuries; her father had been the only one on deck and was thrown overboard but was saved by his lifeline.[6]

Of her upbringing, Heywood has remarked "kindness and warmth... were so absent in my childhood"; she has not been in contact with her father since 2019 owing to his objections to her writing her memoir, her mother, with whom she had a very strained relationship, died in 2016, and "she has not spoken to her brother for some time", he, having been the "favoured child" and not academically inclined, not having experienced the same deprivations as Heywood. She notes her father's motivation for undertaking the sailing voyage as a desire to be "heroic", observing also his "quite aggressive" nature, and recounts her mother's cold behaviour: "she wouldn’t speak to me, or would refer to me as “her” in front of me. She really disliked me and favoured my brother." Prior to her death, Heywood's mother typed a letter, found later by her daughter, in which she "threatened that if I went ahead with the book, she would write nasty things about me and Jeremy, and try to ruin his career. She also said that I was educationally poor. It was horrible, horrible but helpful– and it set me free".[7]

Having been denied the opportunity to settle at a boarding school to enjoy the education she craved- and for requesting which she was berated for selfishness by her parents-[8] Cook undertook her secondary education through the Queensland Correspondence School, doing both the Junior Certificate and the Senior Certificate.[9][10]

The family arrived in New Zealand when Cook was 15, and Cook was left with her younger brother to live in a small holiday house at the isolated Lake Rotoiti. A year later, she returned to England alone and matriculated into Somerville College, Oxford in 1987 to study zoology.[9] Her college tutor was Marian Dawkins.[9] She graduated from Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1990.[2] She then moved to the University of Cambridge, King's College, Cambridge, to undertake postgraduate studies.[2][11] She completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1993: her thesis was titled "Filial imprinting in chicks: processes and stimulus representations".[12]

Career

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In 1993, Heywood joined Her Majesty's Treasury as a fast stream trainee.[2][9] In 1995, after two years of training, she was appointed private secretary to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. From 1996 to 1997 she was a Grade 7 civil servant.[2]

In 1997, Heywood left the civil service and moved into the private sector, joining McKinsey & Company as an associate.[11] She became a partner in 2007.[2] She was made director (senior partner) in 2013 when she was appointed Global Head of the Organisation Design Service Line.[2][5] She left McKinsey & Company in 2016 to join the Exor Group as managing director;[11] in November 2022 she was appointed Chief Operating Officer.[13] Additionally, she has been chair of CNH Industrial since July 2018,[5] and served as interim CEO of CNH Industrial from March 2020 to January 2021,[14] following the resignation of Hubertus Mühlhäuser. As Deputy Chair of Trustees she became Acting Chair of the Royal Opera House from December 2019 until July 2020.[15] Heywood is also on the board of the Covent Garden Foundation,[16] Chanel Ltd.,[17] The Economist Group Ltd.[18] and the Royal Academy of Music.[19][20]

Personal life

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In 1997, the then Suzanne Cook married Jeremy Heywood.[2] Jeremy was a senior civil servant, who was Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service until shortly before his death in 2018.[21][22] Together they had three children, including twins.[2]

In 2017, Heywood wrote a biography of her mother-in-law, the archaeologist Brenda Swinbank.[23]

In 2021, Heywood spoke out in defence of her late husband, following criticisms made in Nigel Boardman's review of the Lex Greensill affair.[24][25]

In 2023, Heywood published Wavewalker: Breaking Free, a memoir of her childhood at sea and her efforts to educate herself in order to escape back to a more normal life.[26][10]

Selected works

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  • Heywood, Suzanne (2023). Wavewalker: Breaking Free. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780008498498.
  • Heywood, Suzanne (2021). What Does Jeremy Think?: Jeremy Heywood and the Making of Modern Britain. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780008353124.
  • Heywood, Suzanne (2017). Recollections of a Female Archaeologist: A Life of Brenda Swinbank. Blurb Publishing. ISBN 978-1389025303.
  • Heidari-Robinson, Stephen; Heywood, Suzanne (2016). ReOrg: How to Get It Right. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. ISBN 978-1633692237.

References

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  1. ^ "Awards for Birthday Honours List 2024" (PDF).
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Heywood, Suzanne Elizabeth, (Lady Heywood)". Who's Who 2018. Oxford University Press. 1 December 2017. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U281905. ISBN 978-0-19-954088-4. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  3. ^ Carpenter, Louise (3 April 2023). "'My family sailing jaunt turned into a 10-year nightmare at sea'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  4. ^ Carpenter, Louise (3 April 2023). "'My family sailing jaunt turned into a 10-year nightmare at sea'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d "Suzanne Heywood". CNH Industrial. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  6. ^ a b "Sailing hero honoured 33 years on". BBC Local Gloucestershire. 17 December 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  7. ^ Carpenter, Louise (3 April 2023). "'My family sailing jaunt turned into a 10-year nightmare at sea'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  8. ^ Carpenter, Louise (3 April 2023). "'My family sailing jaunt turned into a 10-year nightmare at sea'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  9. ^ a b c d "Life before Somerville". Somerville College Report 2012-13. Somerville College: 51–57. 24 October 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  10. ^ a b Heywood, Suzanne (24 March 2023). "'Dad said: We're going to follow Captain Cook': how an endless round-the-world voyage stole my childhood". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  11. ^ a b c "Profiles - Suzanne Heywood". Bloomberg. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  12. ^ Cook, Suzanne Elizabeth (1993). Filial imprinting in chicks: processes and stimulus representations. E-Thesis Online Service (Ph.D). The British Library Board.
  13. ^ "Exor announces three senior appointments and a reorganization of its investment activities". EXOR. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  14. ^ "What Can CNH Industrial Expect from New CEO Scott Wine?". AG Equipment Intelligence. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  15. ^ "Royal Opera House appoints David Ross as Chair of the Board of Trustees". Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  16. ^ "About the Royal Opera House". www.roh.org.uk. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  17. ^ "Mrs Suzanne Elizabeth Heywood has been appointed in a total of 11 companies". suite.endole.co.uk. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  18. ^ "Economist Group Board". www.economistgroup.com. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  19. ^ "CNHI.IT Company Profile & Executives - CNH Industrial N.V. - Wall Street Journal". www.wsj.com. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
  20. ^ MarketScreener. "Suzanne Heywood - Biography". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
  21. ^ "Heywood, Sir Jeremy (John)". Who's Who 2018. Oxford University Press. 1 December 2017. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U20034. ISBN 978-0-19-954088-4.
  22. ^ "'I will miss him more than I can say'". BBC News. 4 November 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  23. ^ Heywood, Suzanne (2017). Recollections of a Female Archaeologist: A Life of Brenda Swinbank. Blurb Publishing.
  24. ^ "Greensill: Lady Heywood's anger at 'scapegoating' of late husband by inquiry". BBC News. 23 July 2021. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  25. ^ Observer, The (23 January 2022). "Suzanne Heywood: 'Jeremy gave his life to public service. He should not take the blame for the lobbying scandal'". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  26. ^ Heywood, Suzanne (2023). Wavewalker: Breaking Free. William Collins.
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