Hilary Wild is a Chartered Accountant (IACEW), qualifying on an apprentice scheme with a medium-size firm in Oxford followed by 2 years with one of the Big Four. She realised that audit was not for her as she liked to deal with the future, not the past and moved into financial services, initially with an American bank in London and Greece leading on ship finance in the southern Mediterranean. She then moved into the development world as Treasurer at UNICEF in New York where modernised and streamlined global treasury operations. She returned to the world of financial services joining the Kleinwort Benson group in investment banking focussing on structured finance as well as M & A moving to asset management to revitalise the charity asset management business as well as support a complex corporate re-structuring to create a new global business under the umbrella of the Dresdner bank group. Her last full-time executive role was with WHO in Geneva where she was the global CFO. She spearheaded financial reform to modernise financial management as well as corporate IT systems to deliver a more modern way of working through a global ERP system for over 190 locations globally.
Since giving up a full-time executive career, Hilary has held a range of non-executive board roles, including with the CGIAR, the world’s largest international agricultural research group, several UK charities involved in both development as well as protecting the environment, and the supporting the health of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. She has chaired oversight committees of several UN organisations, such as UNDP, ILO, UNESCO and FAO. She also chairs the Audit and Risk Committee of the Church Commissioners who are leading responsible investors, managing an £11billion investment portfolio.
In her spare time Hilary likes to spend time in Italy, in Venice and the Dolomites, enjoying art, painting and walking.
During her year in Cambridge Hilary is keen to explore the opportunities for people to thrive in working in both the commercial world as well as the not-for-profit and public sectors world, to understand the success factors and barriers to success so that people can more easily and successfully move between sectors. She is also interested to investigate how these two types of organisations can learn from each other to apply good management practices.
