The CBI, Britain’s best-known business lobbying group, will on Wednesday name Cressida Hogg, the BAE Systems chair, to take the helm until 2028.
Sky News has learnt that Ms Hogg, who also sits on the board of the London Stock Exchange’s parent company, has been picked to succeed Rupert Soames as the CBI president early next year.
The appointment will make Ms Hogg a relative rarity as a woman holding the CBI’s two-year presidency, and complete an all-female double act at the top of the organisation.
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Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, was parachuted into the role in 2023 as it fought for its survival amid a sexual misconduct scandal which triggered an exodus of corporate members.
Mr Soames, the former Aggreko and Serco chief who now chairs Smith & Nephew, was recruited in the same year to help stabilise the business group.
A former executive at the London-listed private equity group 3i, Ms Hogg has extensive experience of working in major pension fund and infrastructure roles, which people close to the CBI said would be an asset as Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, focuses on boosting investment in the UK economy.
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Ms Hogg has also chaired Land Securities Group, the property company, and served as a non-executive director at companies including Associated British Ports and Anglian Water.
One person close to the CBI said they regarded it as “a coup” that it had been able to recruit her.
Sky News revealed in July that the CBI was working with Egon Zehnder, the headhunter, on a search for Mr Soames’s successor.
His leadership is said to have persuaded a significant number of companies to rejoin the CBI after a period in which it came perilously close to insolvency.
The group’s handling of a sexual misconduct scandal saw it forced to secure emergency funding from a group of banks, even as it was frozen out of meetings with government ministers.
Mr Soames and Ms Newton-Smith have partly restored its influence in Whitehall, although many doubt that it will ever be able to credibly reclaim its former status as “the voice of business”.
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At one point, Ms Newton-Smith suggested that the CBI might need to change its name in order to distance itself from the scandal which claimed the job of predecessor Tony Danker.
Mr Danker subsequently received a six-figure settlement amid disquiet over the way his exit had been handled.
The CBI’s parlous financial position meant it was forced into job cuts and the closure of some overseas offices.
It also approached some of its trade association members to gauge their appetite to lease parts of the 25,000sq ft Cannon Place office in the City it moved into in 2014.
At one stage, it entertained talks last year about a merger with Make UK, the manufacturers’ body, but these were abandoned.
The CBI has been contacted for comment about Ms Hogg’s impending appointment.
She will stand for election by CBI members at its next annual meeting in 2026.
