Dame Helen Alexander obituary

Businesswoman and former chief executive of the Economist who became the first female president of the Confederation of British Industry

It was not only being a woman that made Helen Alexander different from her predecessors when she was appointed president of the CBI, the British employers' organisation, for two years from 2009. She was also relatively young for the role, and hers was a calm, even self-effacing, personality - a quality not always associated with CBI presidents. And, unlike the others, she was not a big company person, having made her name as chief executive of the Economist, the weekly magazine-format newspaper, during its period of rapid global expansion between 1997 and 2008.

All this helped to make Helen, who has died aged 60 of cancer, the ideal CBI leader at a time when the economy was in deep trouble and trust in business was rapidly collapsing. She was a good listener, and a great networker, and she was unflappable even though there was plenty to flap about. There was not an ounce of pomposity in her, she carried no political baggage, and by no stretch of the imagination could she be dismissed as a fat cat.