Digby Marritt Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham (born 28 October 1955) is a British businessman and politician who has served as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) from 2000 to 2006, and Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008. He sat in the House of Lords as a non-aligned active crossbencher until 2020. Career Education and business career Jones was born on 28 October 1955 in Birmingham, England. He was educated at Bromsgrove School where he was Head Boy. From 1974 until 1977, Jones read Law at University College London on a Royal Navy University Cadetship as a Sub-Lieutenant, graduating with upper second class honours. After graduation, Jones worked for 20 years at Edge & Ellison, a firm of lawyers based in Birmingham, culminating in serving as Senior Partner from 1995 to 1998. Jones was Chairman of the West Midlands Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and became the first serving regional chairman to be appointed CBI's Director-General, serving from 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2006. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2005 New Year Honours for services to Business. He then acted as an adviser to Barclays Capital, Ford Motor Company, Deloitte and JCB. In November 2006, Jones was appointed "Business Adviser" to the Duke of York, receiving £1,000 a month from the royal payroll for working one day a month. This position ended upon his appointment as a Minister in July 2007. Jones was a non-executive director for the IT contractor iSOFT from 2000 until his resignation in July 2005, when he stayed on for one year as an adviser. Government appointments and peerage Jones served as the unpaid UK Skills Envoy from 2006 to 2007, before taking up the role of Minister of State for Trade and Investment 29 June 2007. The post was situated in both the newly created Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Foreign Office. He was appointed as a Government Minister in a move to create a government "of all the talents". As he was not a parliamentarian at the time, Jones was made a life peer, and became a member of the House of Lords. It was suggested that he was taking the Labour whip in the House of Lords, but he chose not to join the Labour Party. He was gazetted as a peer on