John Cahill (businessman)

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John Conway Cahill (8 January 1930 – 4 November 1995)^[1] was a British businessman, and the former Chief Executive of British Aerospace and BTR plc. He sold Rover Group to BMW in 1994.

He was born in Ruislip in Middlesex, United Kingdom. He had a sister. His Irish Catholic father was one of the founders of Blue Circle Industries. He was sent to boarding school at the age of nine. He did not like his experience at boarding school. He left school at the age of 16.

He worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week and did not like holidays.

Cahill rose to become CEO of BTR in 1987, where he led a three-year period of sales growth.^[2] BTR was acquisitive in this period of time under Sir Owen Green’s and Alan Jackson’s leadership.^[3][4]

He became Executive Chairman of British Aerospace on 23 May 1992. He rescued BAe from the brink of bankruptcy. In September 1992 the company wrote off £1bn, to restructure the company. In January 1993 the company received a much welcome order for £3bn for the Panavia Tornado ADV. He sold the Rover Group to BMW in January 1994 for £800m. At the time of being Executive Chairman, he was living in the USA. He resigned on 26 April 1994. BAe was employing around 116,000 people at the time.^[5] He was paid £450,000. He was obsessively punctual. He was given a £3.2m pay-off, a

He became Chairman of TWA on 9 June 1995.

He married an Italian woman named Giovanna Lenardon in 1956 and had three daughters together. He died in Rhode Island of cancer in 1995.^[6]

• Independent obituary November 1995