The Master

At a meeting of the Election Court held on 18th February 2010 John Charles Hayes was elected as Master of the Company for the year 2010/2011.

John Hayes is a second generation Fan Maker following in his late father’s footsteps. He joined the Company in October 1976 shortly after he started his career in merchant banking in Bishopsgate, not far from St. Botolph’s Church where he was christened. So his links with the Company began at a very early age.

John’s banking career began with him working in the Discount Market, where the brokers from the Discount Houses used to visit all the Accepting Houses in person wearing their top hats. From there he moved into corporate lending and the world of export finance, in particular the financing of UK capital goods and services supported by ECGD. The transactions varied in size and complexity from financing the sale of 24 vessels to be built by the then newly created British Shipbuilders, to a single diving bell!

John moved from merchant banking to investment banking in the late 1990s. Now he manages project finance transactions based in various European countries. These include airports, motorways, power stations, mines, schools, hospitals, a bio-ethanol plant and sewage treatment works. This role is often described as being “the agent”, which is ironic in that his great, great grandfather moved in the 1850s to London from Somerset to be an agent for his uncle who was a cheese maker.

Outside the office, John has been involved with his local Church having been Treasurer for 17 years and, more recently, a member of his Diocese’s Finance Executive and chairman of their investments committee. Otherwise he tries to spend as much time as possible in his garden.

John and his wife Catherine live in North Essex and have two daughters; the elder of whom is married whilst the younger, Lizzy, started a career in teaching classics last year. Lizzy has continued the family’s link with the Company by joining as a Freeman. So that at present there are three generations of the family in the Company.