Sir Christopher Gent joins FRC board

Sir Christopher Gent, non-executive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, has been
appointed as a member of the Financial Reporting Council.

Sir Bryan Nicholson, chairman of the FRC announced Sir Christopher’s
appointment earlier this afternnoon. He said that he was looking forward to Sir
Christopher joining the council.

‘He will be representing the business community and his vast commercial
experience will be very welcome,’ he said.

‘This is an exciting time for the Financial Reporting Council, as we are
establishing a new regime to set actuarial standards and oversee the regulation
of the actuarial profession, with the new arrangements starting in April 2006.’

Sir Christopher is the former CEO of Vodafone Group and was there for 11
years in various senior roles. Prior to his retirement from Vodafone in July
2003, he had been a member of the telecoms giant’s board since August 1985 and
its CEO since January 1997.

He was also chairman of the supervisory board of Mannesmann AG, a
non-executive director of China Mobile (Hong Kong), and on the Board of Verizon
Wireless.

Prior to joining Vodafone, Sir Christopher was director of network services
at ICL. In this role, he was MD of computer services company Baric and was
responsible for ICL’s worldwide computer bureau services.

He is a non-executive director of Lehman Brothers Holdings, a director of the
international advisory board of Hakluyt & Co, a senior adviser at Bain
& Co and chairman of the advisory board of reform.