Philip is Chair of the GL Education Group. He is also Chair of CABI, the UK-based intergovernmental organisation which supports subsistence and small-holding farmers around the world.  He is also a Director of two other companies -  Book Source and Nelson Croom. Prior to that he was Chair of Rising Stars UK Ltd, the third largest primary school publisher in the UK, and Chief Executive of Hodder Education, a Debating Matter sponsor and one of the top three school publishers in the UK. He worked at Hodder for over 30 years. He was also a Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica (London), and Chair of Book Aid International, the charity that equips classrooms in sub-Saharan African countries with textbooks and readers that would not be affordable otherwise. He has been an Associate of the Academy of Ideas for ten years, and was involved in the Debating Matters competition from a very early stage in its development. He was awarded an MBE for services to educational publishing in 2010.