Richard Haythornthwaite

Richard Neil Haythornthwaite, known as Rick, (born December 1956) is a British business executive. He has led several companies and is currently Chairman of MasterCard and the Creative Industries Federation.

Richard Neil Haythornthwaite was born in December 1956. He graduated from The Queen's College, Oxford, where he received a bachelor of science degree in geology. He earned a master's degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management as a Sloan Fellow.

Haythornthwaite was an executive for BP from 1978 to 1995. He served as General Manager of the Magnus oilfield, operated by BP Exploration, and later served as the President of BP Venezuela.

Haythornthwaite served as the Chief Executive for Europe and Asia and Group Chief Executive of Blue Circle Industries from 1997 to 2001, preparing it for its sale to Lafarge for GBP£3.1 billion in cash. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Invensys from 2001 to 2005. He was a partner of Star Capital Partners from 2006 to 2008. He also served as the Chairman of Network Rail.

Haythornthwaite has served as the Chairman of MasterCard since May 2006 and Chairman of the Creative Industries Federation since 2017.

Haythornthwaite served on the Boards of Directors of the Imperial Chemical Industries, Lafarge, Premier Oil and Land Securities. On 6 March 2018 he joined the global independent investment bank, Moelis & Company, as an Advisory Partner in the U.K.He was Chairman of Centrica from January 2014 to February 2019.

Haythornthwaite served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Southbank Centre for seven years, standing down in January 2015. He also served as member of the board of the World Wide Web Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He was nicknamed "Slick Rick" in a single newspaper piece but the sobriquet has never been used since.