Jack Petchey

Who is Jack Petchey?

Jack Petchey CBE is a businessman, now involved in many charitable enterprises. He was born and brought up in the East End of London. During the second world war, he served in the Royal Navy, and used his Navy discharge pay to start a car hire and car sales business. This grew into a business empire worth - in mid-2007 - over half a billion pounds. In 1969 he was involved with property development becoming one of the most successful businessmen in Britain.

The Jack Petchey Foundation, formed in 1999, has given over £42 million to youth programmes. He started an award scheme for young people recognising, "extreme endeavour and to help young people to help themselves". This scheme covers schools, Scouts, sports clubs, such as cricket clubs, and other organisations. The foundation has a branch in Albufeira, Portugal, doing similar work to its British counterpart.

The Petchey Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of East London and the Petchey Academy are named after him.

He was nominated as a Scouting In London Ambassador for the Scout Association Region for Greater London at an Adult Appreciation ceremony in 2008.

He also owns the Petchey Leisure group, which is a timeshare company. The company has over 52,000 members and holds different types of timeshare including the famous 'Infiniti' point system, which was originally created by Disney but now, like Atlas, is owned by Petchey Leisure.