Facing the flak at Terminal 5
Judi Bevan meets BAA chairman Sir Nigel Rudd, an Eighties entrepreneur turned City grandee who still relishes tough challenges — and has met several at Heathrow
He despises the Labour government for destroying grammar schools. ‘It was the biggest political crime of the second half of the 20th century,’ he says passionately, adding that teachers should be better paid. Most of his charitable efforts go to Derby Independent Grammar school to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
His teachers believed he was Oxbridge material but his parents urged him towards the economic security of the professions and in 1962 his father found him a job as a trainee accountant in Derby. The Swinging Sixties passed him by and five years later he qualified as the youngest chartered accountant in the country. During his training he had been shocked at the parlous management of British industry. When he went to work for London & Northern, a conglomerate run by the colourful Jock Mackenzie, he was soon given a chance to run one of the subsidiaries, and also met Brian McGowan.
Rudd married his wife Lesley, a well-grounded Derbyshire lady who shares his sense of humour, when they were both 22. It is clear she has his measure. Fearing he might have too much time on his hands after he left Boots, she urged him to take the BAA job, leaving her free to entertain their five grandchildren during the week. The family base is still in Derbyshire, although they have houses in Belgravia and Portugal. He claims not to have ‘super-expensive tastes’, but drives an Aston Martin DB9 and enjoys regular shooting parties — he lost a finger in a shooting accident some years ago — and exotic holidays. His life is enviably well organised and he is never late despite his working commitments, being deputy lieutenant of Derbyshire, working out three times a week, shooting and playing golf to a handicap of 12.
A lifelong Conservative, Rudd has firm views on environmentalists who want to restrict people’s right to fly. ‘I think they are elitist and the idea of pricing poorer people out of the market is socially divisive.’
Rudd’s contract at BAA is initially for three years and by then the new Terminals 1 and 2 should also be almost finished. ‘In four years’ time 70 per cent of customers will be using new terminals,’ he says. With Rudd and his new team in charge, there’s a sporting chance the openings will be less fraught than that of Terminal 5.
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Mike in Singapore
April 11th, 2008 10:03amSo his track record involves building up one company, tearing it down and selling it overseas, selling a second overseas to the Japanese, merging and selling another to overseas PE, and now chairing the company responsible for one of the biggest shambles we have ever seen.
This guy is a role model for British business?
God help British business.
Mike
April 11th, 2008 10:11amThis guy has one 'sort of' success story to his name -- the creation of Williams Holdings -- purely through acquisition. Since then he has sold one company he chaired to the Japanese, another to US PE interests, has chaired another that has provided us with the biggest national embarressment for many a year.
Is this guy really a role model for British business? Isn't the simple truth that he has never really done much except diminish British industry. I think that we have a right to expect more from our industrial leaders than this sort of 'leadership'.