52 With King Salman of Saudi Arabia
With Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
watching the merger unfold on his Reuters screen. Te value of the two companies was changing before his eyes. BP and Amoco had each been worth around $50 billion, so you might have expected the combined company to be worth roughly $100 billion. Instead, within minutes, the market had valued the new business at around $150 billion as investors recognised the potential synergies. Five years later, aſter more than
three decades at BP, Dick leſt to become chairman of BAE Systems. For the first time in his career, he felt genuinely alone. “At BP, I knew everybody, and
everybody was so incredibly supportive.” He took two familiar faces with
him: his PA, Janet Ling, who has now worked for him for 36 years, and his former driver, Bill Woolley. Dick chaired BAE from 2004
to 2014, a period in which the company was forced to confront serious questions over its ethics and compliance culture. Te Serious Fraud Office was
investigating historic defence contracts, followed by scrutiny from the US Department of Justice. Dick concluded that BAE needed more than a legal response. It needed a cultural one. He changed much of the board
and commissioned an independent review of the company’s ethical standards and leadership. Lord Woolf, the then recently retired Chief Justice of England and Wales, agreed to lead it. “I had breakfast with Harry Woolf, I explained what I wanted doing
which was a review internally of the ethical performance,” Dick recalled. “I’ll never forget what he said: “My dear boy, I don’t think I’ve got any of the skills that you’re looking for.” “I replied ‘Lord Woolf, you
have the only skill that I need: unimpeachable integrity.’ “A week later he called me and
said ‘I’ll do it.’” Te resulting culture-change
programme involved some 100,000 people around the world and became one of the achievements Dick remains most proud of. His work at BAE was recognised
in a number of ways. Te company ranked fourth out of 129 companies in Transparency International’s defence-industry anti-corruption index. In 2012, Dick was named Non-Executive Director of the Year and, in 2013, he was knighted for his services to business and contribution to UK corporate governance. Alongside his main career, he held
board and advisory roles with com- panies including Reuters and HSBC, served on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain and Prime Minister David Camer- on’s Business Advisory Group, and chaired the Royal Academy of Engi- neering’s Education for Engineering Policy Group. In 2015, he received the Academy’s President Medal for his contribution to engineering and education in the UK. Today, the scale of those
boardroom battles seems a long way from Dick’s nine-acre home on the River Dart, near Agatha Christie’s former home at Greenway. Nowadays Dick enjoys sailing his
J95 yacht and Dutch powerboat, and spending time with his two daughters and five grandchildren. But he has not exactly retired from
business. Dick helped establish QantX, a
local investment business supporting promising technology and life- sciences companies in the South West. Its first £15 million fund has invested in 17 businesses and helped create around 200 jobs in the region. Te team is now working on a much larger fund. Te aim is to provide young
companies with more than capital. “What we give to businesses
that are spinning out is money, mentoring and networks,” he says. “If you get the right people, the right company, the right mentoring, the right networks, you can create some magic.” It is a fitting role for someone
whose own career was shaped by opportunities he never expected. Ask Dick what he would tell the
young engineer who walked into BP in 1973 and he doesn’t offer a care- fully constructed career strategy. “Enjoy it,” he says with a smile. And his advice to anyone
wondering which path to take? “Just find something interesting
and go for it.” Aſter a career that has taken him
from Essex bridges to the highest echelons of British business, it seems he has followed his own advice. Sir Dick has recently written about his career in a memoir titled ‘Building Bridges: Fiſty Years in Business’, available at Amazon and all good bookshops.•
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