Sir Anthony Bamford – Business Ambassador Profile

JCB

Profile

The Bamford Foundation was established in 1979 to support charities and needy causes, particularly in Staffordshire. The Foundation gives quietly and generously to many organisations.

Sir Anthony Bamford became Chairman and Managing Director of JCB at the end of 1975, succeeding his father, the late Joseph Cyril Bamford CBE, who founded the company on the day his son was born on October 23rd, 1945. Sir Anthony’s career began with a two year engineering apprenticeship at Massey Ferguson in France before he started at the JCB World Headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire, in 1964.

Five years later he established JCB SA, the company’s French subsidiary in Paris, which has become the model for JCB’s world-wide development.

Under Sir Anthony’s leadership, JCB has grown to become one of the world’s largest and most successful construction equipment manufacturers. JCB has won more than 50 premier awards for exports, marketing, design, technology and for its care for the environment, among them 25 Queen’s Awards for Technological and Export achievement.

Sir Anthony was knighted in 1990, was a former High Sheriff and is a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire.

He is active in charitable work through the Bamford Charitable Foundation but his continuing professional concern is the success of JCB which exports more than 75% of its machines to 150 countries around the world. The company has eight plants in Staffordshire, two in Wrexham, one in Derbyshire, a factory in Savannah, Georgia, one in Brazil, three in India, one in China and one in Germany. JCB provides indirect employment worth over £200 million for 186 companies within a 50 mile radius of Rocester, its international headquarters. Sir Anthony has been instrumental in setting up The JCB Academy in Rocester, which opened in September 2010, a £22 million project to create the next generation of young engineers.