Richard Walker

Richard Walker was born in Chester in 1980. After graduating from Durham University in 2001, with a degree in geography, he travelled extensively across Russia, China, India, South East Asia and South America before qualifying as chartered surveyor with Jones Lang LaSalle. He developed his own property business in Poland before establishing Bywater Properties, a London-based company focused on cross-sector UK property investment and development. It now has projects valued at more than £200m under development, and Richard remains its Chairman. In 2012 Richard joined Iceland Foods, the company established by his father Malcolm in 1970. He worked full-time as a shelf-stacker and cashier in London for a year, before becoming a store manager in Swiss Cottage and moving to Iceland head office at Deeside, Flintshire, in 2013. After various head office roles, including a spell running Iceland’s International division, Richard became Managing Director of The Food Warehouse, Iceland’s chain of 55 larger format stores, in 2015. He was also appointed Group Director for Sustainability in 2017. Richard is married to Rebecca and they have two daughters and live in Cheshire. Outside family and business, Richard’s greatest passions are trail running, skiing, surfing and climbing all over the world. His notable climbing achievements include a 2011 expedition to climb the north side of Everest, and a 2017 trip to Kyrgyzstan where he notched up several first ascents of previously unclimbed mountains.