The Times: The man who means business in Britain: “Maarten van den Bergh presides over four British quoted companies.”: "Mr van den Bergh has one thing in common with a lot of other captains of industry: he has spent a large part of his career at a single company. In Mr van den Bergh’s case that company was Shell.": Wednesday 9 November 2005

By Robert Cole

Most of the captains of capitalism in the Times Power 100 are British. But the top dog is Dutch

Maarten van den Bergh

THE most powerful man in British business is a Dutchman, according to the Power 100 research by The Times into who runs what in the highest echelons of British business.

Maarten van den Bergh presides over four British quoted companies. He is the most senior director of the British bank that likes to say “ja” and one of a small band of men and women who oversee the operation of the British telephone company that assures us it is good to talk. He also sits on the board of the British airline that reckons it is the world’s favourite, and the oil company that says we can be sure of it.  

Mr van den Bergh — chairman of Lloyds TSB and a director of British Airways, British Telecom and Shell — is, in many ways, typical of the kind of person who succeeds in British business. He is white, university-educated and male.

Women are catching up, though. There are more in the Power 100 than before — and 50 per cent more than in the first list in 2003. They are still in a tiny minority: only nine out of the whole 100. But there were only seven last year.

Moreover, women are ranking more highly. Take Baroness Hogg, for example. Partly because she is the first and only woman chairman of a FTSE 100 company, she has made it into all three Power lists. This year, largely through her recent appointment as nonexecutive director of BG, the company that used to be called British Gas, she makes it into the top ten. The highest ranked female in 2003 came in at 38 while the highest placed last year took the No 25 slot.

Mr van den Bergh is slightly older that the average Power 100 constituent. He is 63, while the average age of the rest is just over 56.

It is not unusual that Mr van den Bergh is married and has two daughters. But he does stand out for his linguistic skill. He speaks five languages: German, Spanish and Japanese as well as English and Dutch. His hobbies are also slightly out of the ordinary. About a third of the Power 100 relax by playing golf; Mr van den Bergh studies European history and Asian antiques.

Mr van den Bergh has one thing in common with a lot of other captains of industry: he has spent a large part of his career at a single company.

In Mr van den Bergh’s case that company was Shell. He spent 32 years there. Sir Tom McKillop, No 2 on the list, spent most of his career at AstraZeneca, the drugs company, and John Buchanan, in third place, worked mostly at BP. Men and women who have decades of experience at HSBC, Unilever and Vodafone also feature prominently. An accountancy qualification, a career in the diplomatic service or a bank comes in handy, too.

Long experience of a single institution gives industry’s leaders a good grounding for success. A formative education at a public public school followed by Oxbridge is also common, although far from universal.

Public schoolboys and girls outnumber grammar school alumni by about two to one. Two attended Uppingham — Stephen Fry’s alma mater — and two more went to Fettes, Tony Blair’s old school. No one admits to attending Eton or Harrow but Lancaster, Paisley and Battersea Grammar schools do feature. So does Belfast College of Technology.

As for universities, one in four of the Power 100 2005 attended Oxford or Cambridge. Three read for their degree at Oriel College, Oxford, two at Brasenose and two more at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Of the three quarters who did not go to Oxbridge, four took a degree at Imperial College, London, and three preceded William Wales, second in line to the throne, at St Andrews. Harvard and Stanford feature. But so do Thames Polytechnic and the universities of East Anglia, Sheffield, Glasgow, Delft and Stellenbosch, near Cape Town.

Most of the captains of capitalism in the Power 100 are British. But the reality that British business operates in a global market is reflected by one in five on the list being a foreign national. Two are American, three are Australian, four are French and four are Dutch. 

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