From Nairobi to London: Lord Mayor on the ÂœBear Necessities
- By Deborah Minors
Some 600 000 spectators lined the streets of London to witness the 795th Lord Mayor’s Show on 13 November 2010, which welcomed Michael Bear (BSc Eng Civil 1975) as Lord Mayor of the City of London. Elected at a silent ceremony at Guildhall on 29 September 2010 for one year to this apolitical and unremunerated post, Bear officially took office on 12 November 2010.
A parade resplendent with golden horse-drawn carriages, marching bands, dramatic floats, rickshaws and Zulu warriors coloured the 4.8km
(3 miles) route from Bear’s official residence, Mansion House, to St Paul’s Cathedral for a blessing, to the Royal Courts of Justice to swear allegiance and back again and culminated in a fireworks extravaganza on the Thames River.
The international ambassador for the UK business and financial services sector
The Lord Mayor of the City of London is the international ambassador for the UK business and financial services sector. He heads up the City of London Corporation – comprised of the Court of Aldermen and the Court of Common Council – which provides local government services and promotes the City. As the preferred candidate of the Court of Aldermen, Bear served as Sheriff of London in 2009, a prerequisite to being Lord Mayor..
African Bears in the Wits
Bear was born in Nairobi, Kenya, on 21 January 1953. His father, Wits benefactor Dr Lionel Bear (BSc Eng Geology 1949, DSc (Eng) 1964) was a colonial civil servant and the family lived in Cyprus before moving to South Africa in 1969.
Bear is the tenth Jewish Lord Mayor of London, a pilgrimage that began at his bar mitzvah in the Western Cape in January 1966 and culminated in his mayoral installation at London’s oldest shul, the Bevis Marks Synagogue, in 2010.
Bear attended Clifton College in the UK before enrolling at Wits University where he met his wife, Barbara (née Sandler) (BA 1977). The civil engineering graduate and Arsenal FC supporter, who now enjoys trekking, scuba diving and tennis, has a history of philanthropy and literal and metaphorical bridge-building. He was detained by apartheid police for teaching maths and science in his garage to maligned South African children, he worked in South Africa’s former homelands after graduating and has supported South African charities.
Bear’s engineering career began in South Africa in 1974. He relocated to the UK in 1978 and joined a consulting engineering firm. He acquired an MBA from Cranfield University in 1981 and worked as a business analyst and then as international business development manager at Balfour Beatty Engineering Ltd until 1988. He established and ran entrepreneurial initiatives during the 1990s.
Currently the regeneration director at Hammerson plc and managing director of Balfour Beatty Property, Bear was also part-time Chief Executive of Spitalfields Development Group, where he previously allocated funds to uplift Bangladeshi migrants in London. In 2002, a Bangladeshi delegation requested that he represent them in the Ward of Portsoken.. Bear agreed when he discovered the apolitical nature of the role. Elected to Common Council in 2003 (and winning the Green Leaf Award, Spitalfields) he rose to Alderman in 2005, that year also winning the Best Built Project Contributing to London’s Future Award. In 2006, he won the Best Commercial-Led Regeneration Project of the Year Award, before becoming Sheriff in 2008..
Engineering philanthropy
The social engineering and rejuvenation that characterise Bear’s career equip him eminently to promote the City based on his Lord Mayoral theme, “London, City of Choice”.
Bear’s charitable appeal is “Bear Necessities – Building Better Lives”, through which children’s charity, Coram, will benefit from funds and a university tuition bursary. The appeal also supports RedR, a charity that trains engineers and relief workers for deployment to disaster-struck areas worldwide.
In his inaugural speech, Bear said, “We have a moral obligation to lead the way in… helping the most vulnerable in society and the City must set an example.
“I want to revive this centuries-old tradition of working to improve the lives of those most in need. I want the City of London to build a new movement of philanthropists, in which each and every one of us has a role to play.
“That philanthropy isn’t just for those with bundles of money. A true revolution in giving will involve everyone. This isn’t just about money; we all have something we can give.