Chris Nicholson

Chris Nicholson came to CentreForum, the liberal think tank, in 2010 as its Director and Chief Executive.

He spent the first five years of his career as a Government economist in the Department of Trade and Industry specialising in regional policy and government assistance to industry. He joined KPMG in 1985, becoming a partner in 1993 in the Corporate Finance Group. He left the KPMG partnership in March 2010 to fight the Streatham Parliamentary seat for the Liberal Democrats. Whilst at KPMG he worked in the areas of economic development and regeneration, public service reform, privatisation, competition and regulation, public private partnerships and PFI. From 2004-2008 he headed KPMG's public sector practice.

Chris has served as a member of IPPR's Commission on Public Private Partnerships, the Liberal Democrats Huhne Commission on Public Service Reform and chaired the Home Office's Reducing Re-offending Corporate Alliance Employers Group. He has also been a trustee of Kaleidoscope, a drug treatment and rehabilitation charity.

From 1982-91 Chris was a Liberal (then Liberal Democrat) Councillor in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames, becoming the first ever non-Conservative Leader of the Council in 1986.