Cemeteries and Crematoria

Howard Hodgson MBIFD (Dip) Ass. RSH (Chairman and COO)

(b,1950) A fourth generation funeral director, Howard trained with James Summers of Cardiff in 1968. He took over the family business in 1975 and launched an expansion programme that culminated in the flotation of Hodgson Holdings plc in 1986. The company was subsequently merged with Kenyons in 1989 and then with Great Southern Group to form the largest funeral/crematorium group in the UK. Howard sold his interests in 1991, having taken the company from one branch to 546 and becoming 'Entrepreneur of the Year 1987' in the process. He is largely recognised as the individual who transformed the funeral industry in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s. He then enjoyed a second career in the gift industry, becoming successively chief executive of Ronson plc and Colibri International. He is also a social commentator and author, contributing frequent articles and features in the national press, television and radio. He published a biography on the Prince of Wales in 2007.

hhodgson@memoria.org.uk

Michael Hackney MA (Oxon) (Director of Finance and Planning)

(b,1950) is a former career banker who has held senior positions with both the ANZ/Grindlays and Abbey National banking groups, including in venture capital, where he was responsible for the flotation of Hodgson Holdings plc, and in debt recovery, which resulted in him directly managing a succession of troubled commercial and financial businesses as principal for the bank, both in the UK and Europe, 1992-2000.

mhackney@memoria.org.uk

Andrew Sells (Non-executive Director)

(b, 1948) Andrew Sells joined Memoria as a Shareholder and Director in early 2009. From 1992-2002 he was Chairman of Westerleigh Group, which is a group of crematoria and cemeteries specialising in joint ventures with Local Authorities. Under his Chairmanship Westerleigh grew from one loss making site to the largest independent crematoria group in the U.K. with ten facilities. It was recently sold for £70m.

Andrew is currently Chairman of The Garden Centre Group (formerly Wyevale) which consists of 122 garden centres across England and Wales with sales of some £250 m. and 4,500 employees. Following a debt for equity swap in early 2009 the group is now controlled by Lloyds TSB. Andrew is also Treasurer of two charities: the Royal Horticultural Society and Policy Exchange, a think tank. He was Chairman of Linden Homes from its start-up in 1991, through its full listing in 1996, its MBO in 2000 until its sale in March 2007. His early career was spent investment banking with Schroders before he moved into venture capital in 1983. For the ten years 1990 – 2000 he was Managing Director of Sovereign Capital Limited. He is a Chartered Accountant and has an MBA from the London Business School.

Jamieson Hodgson (New Business Manager)

(b, 1983) Jamieson Hodgson joined Memoria in early 2009 and is currently managing new business development. He spent the previous 3 years working for Accenture where he led business development for their strategy practice specialising in the capital markets industry. This role saw him work on a number of projects for UBS, HSBC, RBS and Citi Group. Prior to joining Accenture, Jamieson completed a honours degree in International Business and Finance and also worked for the VW Group and PwC during this time. Despite his work in other industries, he has always maintained a strong interest in the funeral sector due to his family connection and therefore has developed an excellent knowledge of the cremation industry.

jhodgson@memoria.org.uk

Christopher Johns FIBCA (Dip) (Director 2003 – 2009, presently exclusive consultant on new Memoria projects)

(b.1957) Chris has 30 years' continuous experience of cemetery and crematoria operations in both the public and private sectors in the UK. This includes managing Britain's busiest crematorium (Portchester) and its most famous (Golders Green).

Until May 2003 he was operations director of the cemeteries and crematoria division of Dignity plc, the successor company to the Hodgson/Kenyon/Great Southern entity that had been acquired by SCI of the US, managing 21 crematoria and 4 cemeteries. From October 2003 to October 2004 he was the first President of the newly formed ICCM (the re-named Institute of Burial and Cremation Administration), which represents around 1,000 people who manage cemeteries and crematoria in the UK, and which influences government and industry policy - see "News Archive"". In 2009 Chris retired as a director but remains as an exclusive consultant concentrating on managing the opening of new facilities.

Tony Walker (Demographics Consultant)

Tony started his career in Chesterfield with a firm of Chartered Accountants, but soon moved into the public sector, working with Sheffield City Council and Wrexham. He was appointed Borough Treasurer of Ashford in Kent in 1978.

He has been a qualified accountant for 40 years with a particular interest in economic development. He was on the National Executive Committee and Treasurer of the Federation of Economic Development Authorities, and whilst at Ashford was Financial Advisor to the Kent Association of District Councils.

On his retirement, Tony joined SCI as a self employed consultant, negotiating with local authorities over purchase of existing crematoria and supporting SCI and later Dignity on contracts to provide new crematorium facilities. He determined the likely throughput and produced the business plans for new developments.

In 2004, when Dignity temporarily withdrew from the provision of further new crematoria, Memoria was set up to fill the gap. Tony now provides consultancy services to Memoria, seeking areas not already adequately covered by crematorium facilities, specifying optimum locations for new crematoria and providing demographic information to support financial appraisals.