Paul Marshall (investor)

Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall (born 2 August 1959) is a British investor.

Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall was born on 2 August 1959 in Ealing, London, England, the son of Mary Sylvia Clucas (Hanlin) and Alan Marshall. He was educated at St John's College, Oxford, and holds an MBA from INSEAD Business School.

He is the co-founder and Chairman of Marshall Wace LLP, one of Europe's largest hedge fund groups. Marshall Wace was founded in 1997 by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace. Funds managed by Marshall Wace have won multiple investment awards and the company has become one of the world's leading managers of equity long/short strategies. He is a member of the Hedge Fund Standards Board.

Marshall had a longstanding involvement with Britain's Liberal Democrats Party. He was research assistant to Charles Kennedy, MP, former leader of the Liberal Democrats in 1985 and stood for Parliament for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in Fulham in 1987. He has made appearances on current affairs programmes such as BBC Radio 4's Any Questions.

In 2004 Marshall co-edited 'The Orange Book' with David Laws, MP. Chapters were written by various upcoming Liberal Democrat politicians including Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne, Vince Cable MP, Ed Davey MP and Susan Kramer (Neither Clegg, Huhne nor Kramer were MPs at the time.) Laws, describing the pairs' ambition in publishing The Orange Book, wrote "We were proud of the liberal philosophical heritage of our party. But we both felt that this philosophical grounding was in danger of being neglected in favour of no more than ‘a philosophy of good intentions, bobbing about unanchored in the muddled middle of British politics’" The book received initial controversy when launched but both it and the term 'Orange Bookers' to describe those sympathetic to its outlook continue to be frequently referenced to describe a strand of thought within the Liberal Democrats.

Marshall left the Liberal Democrats in 2015 over their policies on the EU and their support of continuing British membership. He was a public supporter of Brexit during the referendum campaign.

Marshall was the founder, and chairs the Board of Trustees of the independent research institute the Education Policy Institute. For over a decade he was also Chairman of the EPI's previous form, think tank CentreForum.

He is a founder trustee of ARK and chairman of ARK Schools, which is one of Britain’s leading providers of academies and has also played a pioneering role in developing new programmes for inner city education. Other initiatives spun out of ARK include Future Leaders, Teaching Leaders, Maths Mastery, English Mastery, Frontline and Now Teach. He is also a founding trustee of the charity Every Child a Chance.

He was appointed Lead Non-Executive Director at the Department of Education in 2013.

In April 2015, it was announced that Marshall would donate £30 million to the London School of Economics to establish The Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship, alongside Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallett. The Institute was launched in 2015, with a core aim "to improve the impact and effectiveness of private contributions to the public good".

Marshall was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to education and philanthropy.

Marshall has written widely about education. In 2012, he edited a book on improving the education system called 'The Tail: how England's schools fail one child in five – and what can be done'. Contributors included Labour MP, Frank Field (politician), Professor Chris Husbands of the Institute of Education and Stephen Machin of the London School of Economics. He is also co-author of 'Aiming Higher: a better future for England's schools' with Jennifer Moses (2006), and author of Tackling educational inequality (with Sumi Rabindrakumar and Lucy Wilkins, 2007)

Marshall's other publications include: The Market Failures Review (Editor – 1999), Britain After Blair (co-editor with Julian Astle, David Laws, MP, Alasdair Murray), and 'Football and the Big Society' (with Sam Tomlin, 2011).

He is married to Sabina and is the father of Mumford & Sons band member Winston Marshall and musician Giovanna Marshall.