Banham was born on 22 August 1940,[1] and raised in Cornwall, where his father worked as a surgeon and his mother as a National Health Service (NHS) administrator, and was educated at Charterhouse School, and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class degree in Natural Sciences.
[2] He worked at the Foreign Office for two years before moving to Reed International and then McKinsey and Co.[2] Banham was an avid sailor, participating in the 1979 Fastnet race, on a Contessa 34 when the yacht was hit by Force 11 winds some 90 miles off Land’s End.
Of the 303 starting yachts, 80 had to be saved, 24 were abandoned (of which two were retrieved) at least 75 boats capsized and five sank.
Running before the storm, and navigated by a submariner, the boat managed to make its way unaided to Milford Haven.
He was the first controller of the Audit Commission from 1983 to 1987,[3] and was then Director General of the Confederation of British Industry from 1987 to 1992.