Lord Browne’s emotive EU plea
Business makes some big mistakes – and I have been part of those – but it drives progress
Americans call it “pay for pulse”... you’re in the job and get paid. You have to earn it
BY NOW the public is used to business leaders making the cold, hard economic case for staying in or leaving the European Union. But Lord Browne, the former chief of global oil giant BP and once hailed as Britain’s pre-eminent businessman, makes an unabashed emotional plea.
‘I come from a mother who survived Auschwitz and a father who fought a war in Europe.
‘I think it is really important to say we do not want that again and people who are together, however difficult the discussion, tend to do better than when they are apart and shout at each other.’
But the 68-year-old Browne is equally sure on the business and economic aspect. ‘I am very much a “remain” because I think it is positive for the UK economically. I am also quite sceptical of the people who assume that when you leave, it will all be fine. A lot changes and probably in negotiations a lot has to be given. People want quid pro quos – it’s just human nature.’
Browne, however, is very cautious of making the case purely about what is good for business in a onedimensional way. He suggests that blue-chip business leaders need to stop looking like they are proEurope just because it helps them commercially, but because it is good for everyone.
And so the conversation comes to his book. The tome, titled Connect, is now being published in paperback and is a plea for business to win back the public’s trust.
‘Chief executives who talk about business tend to talk on their terms, not on other people’s terms and that I think is a big problem. You should talk to people you are affecting in their terms, not in your terms.
‘Business is an enormous driver of progress generally. It makes some huge mistakes, and I have been part of some of those, but on average it makes life better. But we are marked by things that go wrong.’
In Browne’s case, quite a few things went wrong. It was under his tenure at BP that 15 workers died in a refinery explosion in Texas City.
Then there was the manner of his own departure from BP in 2007. Amid a legal dispute with this newspaper over details of his private life, Brown resigned. He has since written about his experience as a gay man operating at the top of business and industry in his previous book The Glass Closet. He now refuses now to discuss his private life.
He cites heroes in business such as the original Mssrs Cadbury and Heinz, who triumphed because they made the quality of their product the key issue.
And he praises Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, who he believes has made it central to his company’s strategy that it sees itself providing real social value to its customers. All the studies show you make 20 per cent more return if you engage with society properly.’
So what were the examples of ‘connecting’ from his time at BP, a period when he was dubbed The Sun King for his apparent pre-eminence there and in the wider industry?
‘We had our good moments and our bad moments at BP. But one of the good was that we built a gas field in Indonesia. It was in a place where there was no trust. There were human rights abuses, the army was at it, everybody was at it. People disappeared.
‘Then BP inconveniently found one of the world’s largest gas fields under a couple of villages. I remember the first proposal that came to me that we had to move the villages. I said we have to think about another way forward.
‘We did it by appointing an independent commission to supervise what everybody did including BP and who reported their findings without checking them with BP first. That did not work for a while but eventually people said: “They mean it, they really mean it.”’
There is one issue on which Browne feels business may be on a hiding to nothing – the price of petrol. ‘One thing I don’t miss from running BP,’ he says, ‘is the regular discussion about the price of petrol. I would always refer people to the Government. These are the people who make most money out of petrol and they make it in fixed taxation.’
Since leaving BP Browne has remained one of the great and the good, writing a Government report into higher education, winning an award for responsible capitalism and becoming a trustee at the Tate Gallery.
But he has not quit the oil industry. He is currently chairman at LetterOne, a Russian-backed oil group. However, ask anyone in the street what they think is the glaring example of business’s disconnection with ordinary people and they will say ‘boardroom pay’. Last week came the news that Sir Martin Sorrell will earn £70million as chief executive of advertising group WPP. Browne believes a distinction should be drawn. ‘I have not seen anyone who begrudges someone who has built a company from scratch making an awful lot of money.
‘The public objects to what the Americans call “pay for pulse” where you’re in the job and you get the pay. You have to earn it. There have been plenty of statements from people who have been out of touch saying things like “It’s only a million pounds”. That’s not right.’
Browne himself knows the value of £1million. He left BP with a pension pot worth £22million – which will earn him £1million a year. In his last year he earned £4.57million.
So does he think Sorrell is an example of excessive pay or an entrepreneur who deserves every penny? ‘I am not going to comment on any individual,’ he says.
The book, whose full title is Connect: How Companies Succeed By Engaging Radically With Society by John Browne with Robin Nuttall and Tommy Stadlen is published in paperback by WH Allen, at £9.99. A recommendation on the back calls it ‘a trail-blazer’. The recommendation is by Sir Martin Sorrell.