Chris Ingram (born 9 June 1943) is a British businessman, entrepreneur and art collector[1] with strong benevolent links to Woking.

He attended Woking Grammar School; having obtained six O'Levels of mediocre grades, he left sixth form abruptly after only six months to become a messenger boy at a London advertising agency.

After a shaky start, when there was very limited demand for the concept of a specialist media agency, the company later gained traction and expanded rapidly through the 1980s.

A series of rapid acquisitions commenced in 1993 to create a European network of agencies reflecting the emerging 'Single Market'.

The Financial Times((')) analysis in 2000 of the previous decade showed that CIA was the world's best performing advertising stock of the 1990s.

Ingram was judged 'London Entrepreneur of the Year' in 2000 in the Ernst & Young awards and later, Business Services UK Winner.

However, the company was not truly global and in 1998 all the major agencies had decided to join the trend of the separation of creative from media, resulting in the appearance of much larger competitors in the market.

After a period of courtship, Havas, which also had an incomplete global network, made a bid based on a multiple of 34 pre-tax profits.

After two appeals to the Stock Exchange, WPP was forced to follow through with its bid, netting £432 million cash for Tempus shareholders on 6 November 2001.

The last investment was in Decision Technologies Limited (whose main brand is Consumer Choices), a price comparison site.

In its original guise as the Foundation for Entrepreneurial Management, Ingram was involved from the outset and eventually served as Acting chairman.

The new gallery was named The Lightbox which won the Art Fund prize in 2008 and now houses the majority of the 450 piece Ingram Collection[5] with a regular programme of free exhibitions.