CITY AND SUBURBAN
Searching for talent, directors scratch their heads and each others' backs
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Chairmen are like bishops. There are hundreds of bishops of every persuasion, but the BBC has only heard of three of them — so when the small screen needs a pontificator, round we go on the same tiny dreary rota of rentabishops. We have a rota of rentachairmen, too. Sir Roland Smith has just handed over the role, as well as British Aerospace's chair, to Sir Gra- ham Day. Before them came Sir Charles Hardie, who got too near John Stone- house, the round-the-world swimmer, and Sir Matthew Slattery, the all-purpose admiral ('Slattery will get you nowhere'). Directors, seeking talent, scratch their heads and each other's backs. Aerospace are playing musical chairs, or bumps. Asda's are asking for £357m without ever saying who they want to run the company. The heads of GEC and Hanson, as I have been saying, are past retirement age with no evident successors outside their own families. British Airways lacks a crown prince for Lord King. At BTR, Sir Owen Green's first choice of successor has him- self been allowed to retire. Even at Impe- rial Chemical Industries, so anxious to contrast its boardroom style with Han- son's, the latest reshuffle gives chairman Sir Denys Henderson an older man at his right hand. This is Ronald Hampel, also a director of Aerospace. ICI chairmen used to have three deputies, making the succes- sion a three-horse race — a wasteful system, because the losers would go off and be chairman somewherc else. Now, though, with the ICI executive board much of an age, the succession looks wide open — or unplanned. Shortage of new talent is a familiar delusion in boardrooms, but when it recurs, as now, then is the chance for a new star to shine. Can it be Alan Watkins, the bright light from Lucas who was brought in to revive Hawker Siddeley? In the face of a blockbuster bid from BTR, Hawker would love us to think so. Failing that, he might chance his arm as a bishop.
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