Lord John Sharkey has spent most of his commercial life in communications businesses. He was joint managing director of Saatchi and Saatchi UK, founded and ran his own advertising agency and was chair of various other communications and recruitment enterprises. He became strategic communications advisor to Nick Clegg in 2007 and was chair of the party’s general election campaign in 2010. He is a former Chair of the Hansard Society, a former governor of the Institute for Government, a founding director of the New City Agenda think-tank and chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities and of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance. He is a director of Full Fact, the independent fact checking charity and of Turn2us, a debt relief charity. He is a member of the House of Lords, where he sat for four years on the Economic Affairs Select Committee and currently sits on the EU Select Committee and its Services Sub-Committee. He is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson in the House of Lords on Personal Finance.