In his interview with
the Review, Sir Gerry Grimstone shares a philosophical thought: “My advice to others, particularly to young people starting on their journey, is to try to see your life as a series of chapters, rather than short stories. So when you look back on it, you feel that you have produced a book that is worth reading.”
It would be difficult to choose which chapter of Sir Gerry’s own life is most worthy of note, but our profile on the Standard Life Chairman takes readers through many of them.
As a young civil servant working under Margaret Thatcher’s government, he was instrumental in the privatisation of British Telecom and British Gas, as well as council house sales and employee shareholdings – a process he describes as bringing capitalism into the homes of people who had never encountered it before. Our interview includes Sir Gerry’s recollections of this tumultuous time, as well as his personal impressions of Thatcher.
"We believe that the City would be diminished if it wasn’t the European capital"
Sir Gerry also tells
the Review about how he came to leave the civil service for the private sector, launching the second phase of his career, and reflects on the 13 years he spent in various roles around the world at Schroders, describing the culture shock he experienced when he first joined the merchant bank.
Now, in the third part of his career, Sir Gerry has returned to what he calls “my parish” – the City of London, which he sees as the financial capital of Europe. “We believe that the City would be diminished if it wasn’t the European capital,” he says. “There are more French bankers here than there are in Paris, and that’s because [the City] and our wholesale markets work best when people concentrate together and you have these big pools of liquidity and expertise.”
Read about Sir Gerry’s momentous career, and much more, in the March print edition of
the Review.
Once you have read our Gerry Grimstone profile and the rest of the print issue, keep returning to the
digital edition, which is regularly updated with news, features and comment about the CISI and the financial services industry.
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