David Simon, Lord Simon of Highbury
- Political Affiliation:
- Labour Party
David Simon, Lord Simon of Highbury (born July 24, 1939, London, England) is a British industrialist and politician who served as the chief executive officer of British Petroleum (BP; now BP PLC) from 1992 to 1997 and as minister for trade and competitiveness in Europe for the Labour government from 1997 to 1999.
After graduating (1961) from the University of Cambridge, where he had studied modern languages, Simon joined BP as a management trainee and spent the next three decades climbing steadily through the company’s ranks. His career was interrupted only by his time at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) at Fontainebleau, near Paris. Simon’s linguistic skills and European connections made him one of BP’s leading figures in its strategy of expanding into Europe. He was promoted to chief executive of BP Oil International in 1982 and to BP Group managing director in 1986. Simon’s devotion to the cause of European unity set him apart from the prevailing anti-European mood of those close to Margaret Thatcher, then Britain’s prime minister. Despite his position as one of the country’s leading industrialists, he was excluded from the informal network of business leaders close to Thatcher.
In 1992 Simon became BP’s chief executive. His slogan for running the company—“Purpose, Process, People”—reflected a belief that effective management should be inclusive rather than autocratic, and rather than simply issuing orders and expecting them to be blindly obeyed, he persuaded staff to work for a common cause. Simon’s approach, which was similar to the codetermination philosophy of modern German business management, reflected his experience serving on the advisory boards of the Deutsche Bank and Allianz Group insurance company in Frankfurt. He also advised Jacques Santer, the president of the European Commission, on competitiveness policy. Through the early and mid-1990s, Simon was one of Britain’s most outspoken advocates of European integration, including the controversial plans by the European Union (EU) to establish a single currency. He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1991 and was knighted in 1995.
When the Labour Party returned to power in May 1997, Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed Simon minister for trade and competitiveness in Europe and made him a life peer (as Lord Simon of Highbury) in the House of Lords. His appointment as “minister for Europe” (the widely used contraction of his full title) made him one of the key players in Blair’s strategy of transforming Britain’s relations with the rest of Europe. In a country where it was rare for nonpoliticians to become ministers, Simon’s appointment sent a clear message that the new Labour government would be more sympathetic to the EU than the previous Conservative administration.
Simon stepped down from his ministerial post in 1999 to take a position as adviser to the Cabinet Office, the government department responsible for supporting the prime minister and cabinet and for strengthening the civil service. He was appointed an advisory director at the manufacturer Unilever the following year (he retired in 2009); in 2004 he became an outside director for the company. He also served as a senior adviser for Morgan Stanley International and as a vice president of the European Round Table, a forum for communication between European industrialists. In 2017 Simon retired from the House of Lords.