‘These clouds will have a silver lining’

Judi Bevan meets Sir John Parker, who chairs National Grid and the Court of the Bank of England — and takes an optimistic view of the deepening recession

Few people would have dared to walk out of lunch at the Savoy Grill leaving behind the irascible Lord King. Sir John Parker, the softly spoken Irish charmer who now chairs National Grid, did just that. When he took over as chief executive at the ailing engineering firm Babcock & Wilcox in 1993, he first had to deal with the late John King, then chairman, who believed he should still call the shots despite the decline of the company under his command.

‘We had a real dust-up and I left the lunch early,’ explains Parker. ‘I said, “Either you back me to do what I want to do, or you’ll have to find somebody else.”’ The tactic worked. King capitulated and Parker saved the company, to the delight of its shareholders.