Alistair Boyd
Alistair, along with his twin brother Adrian, was born on 1st May 1934 at the vicarage in Parsons Street , Hendon, in 1934. In common with many others , the war years disrupted his education, causing him to attend eleven different schools before ending up at Marlborough College and subsequently (1952-5), at Wadham College, Oxford.
Sport and music filled much of his leisure time. He ran the 220 hurdles and performed in the high jump for the University. In Chichester Harbour, where the family moved in 1952, he took part in competitive sailing at both Itchenor and Bosham Sailing Clubs. At Oxford, he played the trumpet in three orchestras and helped to run a youth club at the Cowley Motor Works.
After graduating in 1955 and unlike his contemporaries, he was prevented from doing National Service in the armed forces (it was then compulsory) as he had rheumatic fever at school in 1950. Instead, he took up a challenge thrown out to students and graduates by HRH Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, “to go around the world staring with £5”.
He set out in November 1955, travelled 52,000 miles, visited 24 countries, sailing up the River Amazon and down the Congo. Alistair paid his way by teaching English to students, writing for newspapers, appearing on TV chat-shows and by working on ships across the Atlantic and Pacific. He recorded his travels in a book entitled “Royal Challenge Accepted” published in 1962.
Alistair’s travels inspired him to join an international development organisation, the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) whose activities lay entirely overseas. His first assignment was in Malaysia as an executive working up new business ventures and helping the Malaysian Government establish its Federal Land Development Authority for small-scale farmers and the Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Ltd. Whilst in Malaysia, he also represented the Economist Intelligence Unit and the then Federation of British Industry (now CBI) and also contributed to articles for the Far Eastern Economic Review.
In 1967, CDC transferred him to Barbados to launch mortgage finance companies in the Caribbean with the objective of bringing home ownership within reach of lower middle-income families. Then, in 1970, to Africa. And to Tanzania as the GM of the Tanjanika Development Finance Ltd, financing a wide range of enterprises in both the public and private sectors. After four exhilarating years in Dar it was time to move on again. This time, seconded to the Kenyan Government to help the then Minister of Finance, Mwai Kibaki (now President of Kenya) establish the Industrial Development Bank.
His last two overseas appointments with CDC were as Regional Controller for Central Africa , based in Lusaka and then in Nairobi, covering East Africa, Sudan, Seyshelles and Mauritius. Both appointments required him to act as the CDC nominee director on a large number of agricultural, industrial, tourism and utility boards. He became very familiar with airport lounges.
Then, with much reluctance, it was back to the UK and to CDC’s head office in London, where he was appointed Head of Operations for Africa and subsequently as CDC’s deputy chief executive. That took him into new areas of responsibility with European Union institutions in Brussels and Luxemburg, the African Management Services Company based in the Netherlands and a close involvement with nine privatisation programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Before leaving CDC Alistair received a CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) from HM The Queen for services to the “developing” world. This, he shares with all his CDC colleagues who comprised a unique team in helping to bring sustainable economic activity within reach of the less privileged.
After retiring full time from CDC in 1994, he assumed the role of an advisor on African affairs. But that was not enough. He was asked to take on the Chair of the Southern Africa Business Association, become a Council member of the Africa Centre in Covent Garden and be vice-chair of the Royal African Society. He has been on a large number of UK Government missions to sub-Saharan Africa and chaired investors conferences at the CBI and DTI.. Additionally he became a board member of a Geneva –based enterprise development organisation and the Tea Plantations Investment Trust involved in the tea industry in Sri Lanka.
Currently, Alistair is also Chair of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF UK) which incorporates the Flying Doctors outreach programme and has taken on the role of Chair of the AMREF International Forum. AMREF’s mission is to improve the health of disadvantaged people in Africa and to improve the quality of their lives. Its priority areas of operations are HIV/Aids/TB, malaria, safe water supply and sanitation and community health. Its headquarters and extensive training centre for health workers is in Nairobi.
Just to keep his hand in with the development of small and medium scale farmers he is now involved with an organisation aim to assist African farmers through the tough regulations of bringing their produce to Europe.
After such an intense involvement with Africa, Alistair and his late wife Judy, who passed away in 2003 inevitably accumulated an extended African family. That explains why his home remains a magnet for many nationals from sub-Saharan Africa with whom he and Judy had such close and personal connections. A Kenyan student , whose parents he has known for over thirty years, now shares Alistair’s home in London. Alistair is proud of his all-Africa tribe. “They keep me alive”. And with his attachment to Africa goes his love of music from the continent. His neighbours are being educated!
