Obituary for our chairman, David Spencer

It is with the deepest regret that I must inform our friends and supporters that our chairman, David Spencer lost his battle against cancer and died aged just 51 in Sydney, Australia at 3.45pm on Saturday 17th January 2009.

David was a highly successful senior executive with an extensive multi-national background, initially with the airline industry, then with Smiths Group plc, where after five years as Director of Human Resources, he moved into operational management.

In 2005 David was appointed Principal and Chief Executive of the National School of Government and headed its launch with a mission to be the Centre of Excellence for Learning and Development in support of the strategic business priorities of government. He was also a Non-Executive Director of HM Revenue and Customs where he chaired the Audit Committee; he also sat on the Court of Governors of Henley Management College and was Chairman of Trackline International, an engineering company based in Northampton. 

At the time of his death David final was the Group Head of Human Resources for the Lend Lease Corporation based in Sydney, Australia.

It was following a visit to Malawi accompanied by his wife and children in 2000 that David decided he wanted to offer his skills and devote a significant amount of his spare time to benefit some of the world’s most vulnerable children, in one of the world’s poorest nations.  After extensive research into the UK charities operating in this part of Africa, he chose this organization because of its “Dust on the boots”, high achievement combined with low administration cost approach as the one that best fitted his criteria.

David joined the WMF board in June 2002 and was appointed chairman in 2003. He took these responsibilities very seriously, visiting Malawi on a regular basis and became a tremendous asset to the organization.

David bore his illness with dignity, great courage and never lost his inimitable sense of humour.

Over the years he became a great friend and will be deeply missed by us all. 

Our thoughts today are with his wife and children, to whom we send our heartfelt condolences.

 

Michael Burt, CEO 19/01/2009