When Scott Colvin first walked through St Stephen’s Gate, into Westminster’s Great Hall – where King Charles I stood trial – and then stood in parliament’s famous octagonal Central Lobby, with its leather benches and mosaic-covered vaulted ceiling, he knew he wanted to have a career in politics. He was in his early twenties and had landed – “by fluke” – a research job working for his local Eastbourne MP, Nigel Waterson.  “I was interested in politics without having studied it,” says Colvin in his Aviva office in the City. “I had sent out 100 CVs to people and something made me fire off a CV to my MP. Only three people responded. Nigel was one of them. I went to see him and he said, ‘Look, I could give you some work experience, you could see if you enjoy it.’ It’s really strange but that first day in Westminster, it hit me like a flash: I suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my career.” Some 25 years later, after prepping and training senior British CEOs and executives for over 120 Select Committee hearings, as well as writing the book How to Survive a Select Committee, Scott Colvin is regarded as one of the UK’s leading in-house directors of public affairs, heading up a public policy team of nearly 25 at insurance giant Aviva. More informally, he also hosts an influential WhatsApp group of public affairs directors of leading UK companies, where topics like “Who’s going to the Reform conference?” will be discussed.  Before landing his role at Aviva three years ago, he worked for two agencies, Fleishman-Hillard and Finsbury (now FGS Global), and spent four years in-house at the airports group BAA. His career journey has mirrored the increasing C-suite importance of public affairs in the boardroom. 

On the right track Early career highlights include a successful campaign to save the Gatwick Express train service and leading BAA’s negotiations in the European parliament on aviation’s inclusion in the emissions trading scheme. “I spent nine months, basically on my own, travelling out to Brussels and leading that, and we got to the right place, policy-wise.” At Finsbury, he led the public affairs campaign for the successful defence of AstraZeneca against Pfizer in the proposed takeover in 2015. At Aviva, he played a key industry role in the reform of Solvency II regulations, which was a post-Brexit requirement for the UK. “My job was to simplify our messaging and we got the kind of outcome we wanted.” With his well-cut hair, smart navy suit and open collar, his grip on policy detail and affable intelligence – he has a masters in English Literature – Colvin looks like someone who would have fitted in well to the Cameron/Osborne government. But frontline politics was not a career path he ever wanted after a stint as a Tory councillor, a role he “greatly disliked”.  But then, in August 2022, just six months after joining Aviva, he nearly ended up working in Downing Street after Colvin was offered the role of chief of staff at Number 10 by Liz Truss. His name appears in Out of the Blue, Harry Cole and James Heale’s book about the rise and fall of the Truss. He was on a summer holiday with his family when the call came in. He had known the future prime minister – she lasted just 45 days – since 2001, and had given her advice during her Tory leadership campaign. After a couple of days of “careful consideration”, he decided to decline the opportunity to work inside No 10.  He later recalled that the moment the offer was made, his gut reaction was: “No way I should do this.” He was content with his life, not least having landed a top public affairs role at Aviva, and “thoroughly enjoying it”. But that evening, after a couple of bottles of wine, he started to think “maybe I should go for it”, compounded by   trusted friends urging him to take up the role.  After another 24 hours, he realised he really didn’t want to up-end his life and family for what he expected would be two years of “unrelenting pressure” and he “politely turned the role down”, something that turned out to be wise considering the brevity of Truss’s tenure. “I wasn’t ready to wave goodbye to having work-life balance, having only just rediscovered it.”  Does he find it just as easy being effective with a Labour government in power? Does he have as many contacts now with ministers or spads? 

“Under a Conservative government, my personal contacts were obviously stronger.”

“But when I walk through the doors of the Aviva office, my political party is Aviva. So I absolutely do everything I can and take decisions for the benefit of the company. I don’t think anybody in Aviva, unless they look at my CV, can guess my political leanings just from what I say because I try to be unfailingly balanced.” His first meeting at Aviva with any politician was with Tulip Siddiq when she was shadow City minister. He has “good relationships” within this Labour government, particularly around Rachel Reeves’ and Keir Starmer’s ...