John Harvey-Jones
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Sir John Harvey-Jones | |
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| Born | 16 April 1924 Hackney, London, England |
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| Died | 9 January 2008 (aged 83) Hereford, England |
| Occupation | Company director, Television presenter, University Chancellor |
Sir John Harvey-Jones MBE (16 April 1924 – 9 January 2008) was chairman of ICI from 1982 to 1987. He may have been best-known for his BBC television show, Troubleshooter, in which he advised struggling businesses.
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[edit] Life and career
[edit] Early Life
Harvey-Jones was born in Hackney, London; but spent most of his early childhood in Dhar, India, where his father was a guardian to a teenage Maharajah. He was shipped back to England at the age of 6 to attend a prep school at Deal, Kent, where he suffered bullying and was desperately unhappy. He entered Dartmouth Royal Naval College at the age of 13.
[edit] Royal Navy career
Harvey-Jones joined Dartmouth Naval College as a cadet in 1937, and in 1940, at the age of sixteen, he joined HMS Diomede as a midshipman. The next two ships that he served with, HMS Ithuriel and HMS Quentin were both sunk by enemy action. Harvey-Jones went on to join the submarine service in 1942 and received his first command at the age of 24.
With the end of World War II, Harvey-Jones went to Cambridge to study Russian in six months and joined Naval Intelligence as an interpreter. Married to Mary Bignell in 1947,[1] he commanded the Russian intelligence section under the guise of the "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service," which used two ex-german Schnellboot for gathering clandestine intelligence on the Soviet Baltic Fleet. Rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, Harvey-Jones was awarded a military MBE in 1952 for his work in Naval Intelligence.
[edit] Imperial Chemical Industries
Refused permission by the Royal Navy to spend more time with his wife and daughter Gaby, who had contracted polio, he resigned his commission in 1956 and joined ICI on Teesside as a junior training manager. In 1973 at the age of 49 he was promoted to sit on the main board. In April 1982 he became Chairman of ICI reputedly at the odds of 15-1 against, only the second split-career man and non-chemist to reach the top.
Mentored in part by John Adair, [2] Harvey-Jones saw his responsibilities to both stockholders and employees as "making a profit out of the markets where the market is," maintaining a firm belief in "speed rather than direction", on the assumption that "once travelling a company can veer and tack towards the ultimate objective." Resultantly, at the business level he cut non-profit making and what he saw as non-core businesses, so that at board level he could concentrate on putting more power in fewer hands "to reduce the number of those who can say 'no' and increase the motivation of those who can say 'yes,'" maintaining that "there are no bad troops, only bad leaders". After only thirty months in the job, having cut the UK workforce by one third, he had doubled the price of ICI shares and turned a loss into a one billion pound profit.
Despite his public loathing of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he accepted her offer of a knighthood for services to industry in 1985. He was voted Industrialist of the Year in 1988 for the third consecutive year and also became honorary vice-president of the Institute of Marketing. He served as chairman of The Economist from 1989 to 1994.[3]
[edit] Life after ICI
It was the BBC's Troubleshooter series, first broadcast in 1990, that made Harvey-Jones, according to one newspaper, the most famous industrialist since Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It ran to five series and several specials in the 1990s and also won him a BAFTA award.
Having lived most of his post-retirement period in Hay-on-Wye, he died in his sleep after a long illness, aged 83, at the Hereford County Hospital.
[edit] Awards
- In 1952 he was awarded a military MBE for his work in Naval Intelligence.
- In 1985 he was voted Britain’s most impressive industrialist by company directors interviewed for MORI's annual "Captains of Industry" survey.
- In 1985 he received a knighthood for services to industry.
- From 1986 to 1988 (three years running) he received the title of "Industrialist of the Year".
- In 1992 was awarded the title "Motivator of the Year".
- In 1992 he won a BAFTA for his Troubleshooter series
[edit] Affiliations
Between 1986 and 1991, Harvey-Jones served as the third Chancellor of the University of Bradford. In 1989 he became Chairman of The Economist. He had also been, amongst other posts, a non-executive Director of Grand Metropolitan plc (now part of Diageo), Chairman of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and member of The Advisory Council of the Prince's Youth Business Trust. In 2002 he became the president of the MS Trust.[4]
[edit] Bibliography
- All Together Now - (1994), Heineman (ISBN 0749319607)
- Getting It Together: Memoirs of a trouble shooter - (1991), Heineman (ISBN 0434313777)
- Making It Happen: Reflections on leadership - (1988), Harpercollins (ISBN 1861976917)
- Managing To Survive - (1993), Heineman (ISBN 0749315024)
- Troubleshooter - (1991), BBC Books
- Troubleshooter 2 - (1992), BBC Books
- Troubleshooter Returns - (1995), BBC Books
[edit] References
- ^ From bullying to the top of industry. icWales (January 12 2008). Retrieved on 2008-01-15.
- ^ University of Exeter (website accessed 22/03/2007)
- ^ "Obituary: John Harvey-Jones", The Economist, January 19, 2008, p. 94.
- ^ Multiple Sclerosis Trust. "MS Trust President, patrons and trustees". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
[edit] External links
- John Harvey-Jones at the Internet Movie Database
- A look at the varied career of Sir John Harvey-Jones - Real Player
- BBC Working Lunch
- Trusted Leader
- Interview: Sir John Harvey-Jones - Management Today
- Obituary
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by Baron Wilson of Rievaulx |
Chancellor of the University of Bradford 1986–1991 |
Succeeded by Trevor Holdsworth |
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