Sir Richard Giordano obituary

theguardian.com:

Richard Giordano, American born and bred, was renowned for years as the best paid business executive in Britain, and respected as one of the shrewdest. He helped transform British Oxygen (BOC) into a world leader and recast the old Gas Board conglomerate into a group of successful modern businesses.

But Giordano, who has died aged 88, will be remembered also for a miscalculation – precipitating huge “catch-up” executive pay rises at British Gas. They led to one of the biggest AGM protests over “fat-cat” pay, with union demonstrations and the pillorying of his unfortunate chief executive, Cedric Brown, as “Cedric the pig”.

Richard was born in New York, one of three children of Italian immigrants, Vincent, a tailor, and Cynthia (nee Cardetta). “Ambition,” he said, “came as part of the decor.” After Harvard University and Columbia Law School, Dick joined a Wall Street law firm, Shearman and Stirling, in 1959. But in 1963, finding life “too predictable”, he left for a client, the industrial gases business Airco.

Within four years he was running half its operations, becoming chief operating officer at the age of 37. He was promoted to chief executive in 1978 but was hit almost immediately by a takeover bid from a shareholder, British Oxygen, seeking an international platform to widen its traditional imperial base.

Giordano eventually lost a bitterly fought battle, and prepared himself to take time off for his hobby of ocean sailing. Instead he was offered the task of running BOC by its shrewd chairman, Sir Leslie Smith, at a salary in excess of any other UK chief executive. He was surprised by what he found: demoralised managers, lack of control over subsidiaries, overmanning and unions with lots of power – a “them and us”