Singing
out for the southeast
June
15, 2008
A
week in the life of Pam Alexander
Pam
Alexander combines organisational skills, dramatic
jewellery, a passion for housing and choral singing.
“I mark out Tuesday evenings if I can for the Chantry
Singers,” she said.
That’s no mean feat because the chief executive of the
South East England Development Agency (Seeda) has little
free time.
Days spent speaking at consultations on the future of
economic policy are book-ended with talks on investment
with local businesses, catch-ups with MPs and shaping the
agency’s corporate plan for 2008-11. It is all in the
service of Seeda’s remit: to develop the economy of
southeast England by stimulating innovation in business and
regenerating rundown areas.
A lesser woman might have given up the choir.
Alexander, 54, earns £138,000 a year plus a
performance-related bonus. She has been at Seeda since 2004
with an annual budget of £160m and a staff of 350
overseeing projects as diverse as helping to site an
aerospace laboratory or overhauling waste-reduction
strategies.
Shaping modern Britain like this has shaped her career,
too, from a degree in geography at Cambridge, followed by
20 years in the civil service and on to running English
Heritage (1997-2002).
“In 1991-2 I got a policy job in housing and ran the
housing association programme through to 1995, when I
joined the Housing Corporation. That was living the passion
that had taken me into that world in the first place,” said
Alexander, who also chairs the Peabody Trust, a housing
association.
In 1997, when the new Labour government reorganised
regional aid, English Heritage also reorganised into
regions. Alexander was in charge “to make sure our stunning
tourist attractions really were assets of the places that
they were in”.
It was a natural progression to be headhunted for Seeda.
A typical week for Alexander encompasses a range of
activities. As chair of the Women’s Enterprise Taskforce,
she recently spent an evening at a reception for women
entrepreneurs with a glittering “panoply of ministers and
celebrities” and a Friday night with academics and local
councillors hammering out a plan to create a high-tech
university in the Thames Gateway.
Sundays are reserved for the family, with lunch for eight
grandchildren and two nieces a common feature.
Such variety is
also part of her job. “It’s not just growing the economy
but also ensuring quality of life,” said Alexander.
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