MICHAEL EDWARDES
The way we, and probably most others, remember Michael Edwardes is for his extraordinary leadership of British Leyland during one of its darkest hours. However, it was only for five years that he was chairman of the board and apart from a later stint at General Motors, that was his total time in the car industry.
His appointment as chief executive and then chairman soon after was arguably because he had outside knowledge – it seemed that no other traditional car industry loyalist had succeeded so far – and because he had a reputation for rooting out and solving problems.
