Sir Michael
Edwardes is a business executive from South Africa. He was born on October 11,
1930. He is an alumnus of the Rhodes University. He began his career with
Chloride Group in 1951 and became the general manager of one of the company’s
subsidiaries, the Alkaline Batteries.
Edwardes became
the chief executive officer of the British Leyland in 1977 at the time when the
British motor giant was in distress. Within two weeks from his assumption of
office as chairman of the board, the membership of the board was cut trimmed
down from 13 to 7.
In 1979,
Edwardes was knighted in the birthday honors
for the Queen. In 1980, in a speech he delivered in the CBI Conference,
Edwardes was criticized for saying, “If the cabinet do not have the wit and
imagination to reconcile our industrial needs with the fact of North Sea oil, they would
do better to leave the bloody stuff in the ground.”
Edwardes stayed
with British Leyland until 1982. He wrote a book entitled Back from the Brink which described his experience while working
with British Leyland.
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