David Gartside

Appointed to the Board of the Health & Safety Executive in April 2008, David has an engineering and manufacturing background.

With an engineering science degree from Oxford, he worked for consulting engineers and contractors on bridge design and construction, before joining ICI (one of the forerunners of AstraZeneca) in 1977.

A variety of engineering roles followed before a move into manufacturing management in 1987.

Appointed Works Manager in Bristol in 1989, David subsequently filled similar roles for ICI, and post-demerger, Zeneca, at Grangemouth (1992) and Macclesfield (1995).

He was Head of UK Operations for AstraZeneca until 2005, when he was promoted to Vice-President, Safety Health & Environment for AstraZeneca.

David took early retirement from that role in 2008.

Married to Margaret, a teacher, he has two grown-up sons.