Lord Michael Ashcroft is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. He has varied and substantial business interests around the world in public and private companies, including serving as non-executive chairman of Impellam Group, a £2.25 billion UK-based staffing firm. He is a former treasurer and deputy chairman of the Conservative Party in the UK, the honourary chairman and former treasurer of the International Democrat Union and a Privy Council member. In the UK, he is the founder and chair of trustees of both Crimestoppers and the Ashcroft Technology Academy and chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University.