In March 2012 he was appointed Director of External Relations at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME).
Amongst other things, this review was set up to consider the implications of extending the copyright on sound recordings in the UK.
In June 2006 Gowers joined Lehman Brothers in London as head of corporate communications, and stayed until the late 2008 collapse of the firm — one of the key events of the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
In December 2008, The Times published his account of this period, in which he describes Lehman CEO Richard Fuld as "almost unbearably intense" and "insulated from the day-to-day realities of the firm".
[2] In Autumn 2009, Gowers joined BP as head of media relations, replacing his predecessor Roddy Kennedy.