Job done

Grandee of the north west, Bryan Gray, is to stand down from his one-day-a-week job as executive chairman of Peel Media.

It looks like a winding down of a career that's seen plenty of interesting and influential connections. From school in Rotherham, to a chemistry degree at York, Bryan joined ICI - and rose through the company over 19 years.  Then followed 15 years at Baxi boilers - a company which became a casebook study for industrial disputes and different ways of solving them. On the side he became chairman of the North West Development Agency, a key driver in the MediaCityUK project. In 2008 he switched to become Peel Media's chairman, and thus directly responsible for the project. Along the way, Bryan acquired the chair of Westmorland Ltd, running the M6 services at Tebay; pro Chancellorship of Lancaster University; membership of the Lake District National Park Authority; chairmanship of the Lowther Castle & Gardens Trust. He was chairman of Preston North End from 1994 to 2001 as they rose from the Third to First Division (now Championship). He was founding chairman of the National Football Museum. And he was director, then chairman, of the Liverpool Culture Company, when the city was European Capital of Culture in 2008.