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Born in Leicester, England in 1940, Murray was educated at Bedford School. As a teenager, he worked his
way to South America in the ship’s galley of a tramp steamer. Not long after a brief stint as a
trainee in an engineering company, his adventurous instinct led him to join the French Foreign Legion
in Algeria in 1960. The Algerian war was in full swing and Murray spent the next five years in Algeria
with the Legion Parachute regiment (2eme REP). During those five years he recorded in his diaries his
experience on a daily basis of the hard living, harsh discipline, the training, the endless marches and
the skirmishes with the Algerian Fellegah in the Atlas mountains. The book titled “Legionnaire”
was first published in 1978, and has sold over a million copies, with translations into French, German
and Japanese. His book has been made into a film recently.
For over 35 years, he has enjoyed a long and successful business career in Asia, during which he spent
14 years with Jardine Matheson, 10 years as Group Managing Director of Hutchison Whampoa and 4 years as
Executive Chairman of Asia Pacific division of Deutsche Bank. He not only witnessed, but participated
in, what was generally considered to be a golden age of Asian business. He currently runs his private
equity fund management business based in Hong Kong, and serves on the boards and advisory boards of a
number of international companies.
He is married to Jennifer, née Mather, with three children, and three grand-children. He speaks
French, German and Thai. He is an Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic of France and a Commander
of the British Empire (CBE).
He shares a passion for flying helicopters with his wife Jennifer, who was the first woman in the world
to fly solo round the world in a helicopter. He is a keen runner; in his 60th year, he completed the Marathon
des Sables, a 240-km race across the Moroccan desert.
He remains vigorously involved in his business, is a frequent traveller with friends and contacts all
over the world and believes in the saying that if 40 is the old age of youth, then 60 is the youth of
old age.
If Simon completes this new trip to the South Geographic Pole he will be the oldest person ever to have
trekked unsupported to this point. Sir Ranulph Fiennes was a decade younger when he made his successful
crossing of Antartica via the Pole in 1993. Simon is fellow of the royal geographic society. |
