Richard Dobson

Sir Richard Portway Dobson (11 February 1914 - 24 October 1993) was an English businessman. He was one of the most prominent businesspeople in post-war Britain. He spent most of his career at British American Tobacco, where he rose to the position of executive chairman. He also served as chairman of British Leyland.

Life and career Early life and career Dobson was born in Bristol, the son of John Frederic Dobson (1875-1947), a professor of Greek at the University of Bristol, and Dr Dina (Portway) Dobson (1885-1968), an archaeologist.

Dobson graduated from King's College, Cambridge with an honours degree in Classics. Dobson was persuaded by his father that academic life was financially unrewarding, and as he was keen to see the world, he joined British American Tobacco (BAT), with a reference from his college bursar, John Maynard Keynes. Keynes advised the young Dobson not to take the job unless his ambition was to become company chairman. Dobson worked for BAT in China as a marketer from 1936 to 1940.

Dobson returned to BAT after the war, resuming work in China until 1950.

Dobson was appointed as the sole vice-chairman from 1968, during which time he was principally responsible for reorganising BAT's cosmetics businesses, including Yardley, Lenthéric and Germaine Monteil, and helping restore them to profitability. BAT was the largest producer of tobacco products in the world, and the third largest company in Britain as measured by sales.

Dobson was considered one of Britain's ablest company executives.

The historic exclusive trading area agreement with Imperial Tobacco was ended in 1973, which allowed BAT to market its tobacco products in Britain for the first time.

Growth prospects in tobacco were limited by growing public health concerns, so Dobson continued a BAT policy of diversification that had begun in the early 1960s.

Dobson received a knighthood in January 1976. According to Dobson he took on the job as head of one of Britain's most important yet troubled industrial companies out of "a sense of public duty".

Dobson resigned as chairman of British Leyland in 1977 (18 months in office) after a socialist activist recorded him using the term "wog" as a racial epithet at a private dinner. Dobson argued that the comment was taken out of context and conveyed a "totally false impression of his personal and social attitudes and business ethics".

In his later years, Dobson would describe himself, self-effacingly, as a "retired tobacconist and a failed motor manufacturer". He died in 1993.