Dame Deirdre Hutton

Dame Deirdre Mary Hutton (born 15 March 1949), and "The great quango hopper", She chaired the board of Rural Forum Scotland in 1999 when it collapsed due to insolvency. She was, until June 2008, the Vice-Chair of the European Food Safety Authority Management Board. She is Honorary Vice-President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology. a member of the Sustainable Development Commission and a member of the Energy Advisory Panel for the UK Department of Trade and Industry. She was a member of the Better Regulation Task Force. Chair of the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman Council, Hutton was then Deputy Chair of the Financial Services Authority until December 2007. She was a member of the Secretary of State's Consultative Steering Group on the Scottish Parliament. and non-executive member of the Treasury Board, and Thames Water.

Hutton is one of 32 Vice-Presidents of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

Appointed to the board of the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) as a non-executive director in April 2009, Hutton was appointed chair in 2009 by Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, replacing Sir Roy McNulty; she was paid £130,000 for two days' work a week in 2010, which was still the case as of 2015, making her one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time. She retired from the role in 2020. On 1 August 2020, she was appointed as Chancellor of Cranfield University.

Personal life Deirdre Mary Cassells married Alasdair Henry Hutton in 1975 in Oxford. She was appointed CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for 1998, and advanced to DBE in the Birthday List of 2004. In April 2010, she was awarded a Fellowship of City and Guilds.

Hutton has two sons, Thomas and Nicholas Hutton. Her hobbies include gardening and chamber music. She divorced from Alasdair Hutton.