HE’s a man of the cloth and the boss of a national energy and communications regulator, and now Reverend Lewis Shand Smith is rubbing shoulders with the likes of Barack Obama and Pope Benedict XVI.

Rev Shand Smith, the chief executive of the Daresbury-based Ombudsman Services, has been honoured with a place in the Who’s Who 2017, an invite-only book profiling the great and good from across the globe.

He said: “It’s a huge honour – I was quite taken aback by it.

“The invite just came through the mail, and it was a very formal invite too – it was a big surprise.”

Hailing from the Shetland Islands, the 64-year-old was ordained as a priest in 1978 and served in Scottish Episcopal Church until 2005, including a period as a canon at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Aberdeen.

He was also a member of the Shetland Islands Council between 1990 and 1999, serving as council leader from 1994.

Rev Shand Smith then moved on to become deputy ombudsman for the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman between 2002 and 2007 before being appointed chief ombudsman for the Ombudsman Services in England in 2009.

The service, which recently moved its base from Wilderspool Park to Daresbury, resolves public complaints in the energy, communications, property and copyright licensing sectors.

Alongside the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Radcliffe and Chris Froome, Mr Shand Smith is making his first appearance in the Who’s Who, the world famous reference book which contains 33,000 biographies of the most talented and influential people in the world.

Entrants are asked to write their own biographies for the book, which is now on its 169th edition having been first publish in 1849.

Mr Shand Smith, from Stretton who now lives in Chester, said: “They don’t say why they’ve chosen you, they just say you’ve been picked to be in it and if you want to be in it to provide them with a short biography.

“I kind of feel slightly embarrassed by it and I’m wondering whether it’s really me.

“It came as a huge surprise and people are congratulating me all over the place.

“I found it really difficult to write because as well as wanting to know the things you’ve done they also want to know the dates that you did them, so finding that out was quite a piece of research.”

Mr Shand Smith tells his life story and achievements in 19 lines, which is five more than Barack Obama and one less than Pope Benedict XVI.

He lists his hobbies as the gym, cooking, ballet and theatre, but has not yet bought a copy due to its £295 price tag.