The Master Turner, Christopher Roberts, spent much of his career in the civil service, focussing mainly on international economic policy. At different times he worked in the British High Commission in New Delhi, as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister (Edward Heath), as Chief Executive of the British Overseas Trade Board, and as Director-General for Trade in the Department of Trade and Industry.
Since leaving the civil service in 1997 he has been Chairman of the Wine Standards Board, and a Director of the National House Building Council. He has until recently chaired committees of the trade association International Financial Services London and of its EU counterpart the European Services Forum, with the aim of improving access to overseas markets for financial and other service companies in the City of London. He currently works as adviser on trade issues to the international law firm Covington and Burling LLP.
Christopher was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College Oxford. His interests include music, hill walking and cricket: he was a co-founder of the Mandarins Cricket Club, for whom he played badly but enthusiastically for nearly forty years.
While he has personally no skill in wood turning, he believes very much in the Turners’ Company’s role in supporting and publicising this traditional craft and its beautiful products.