Gerry Grimstone, Baron Grimstone of Boscobel


Gerald Edgar Grimstone, Baron Grimstone of Boscobel Kt is a British businessman. He was previously chairman Barclays Bank plc and of Standard Life and group deputy chairman of Barclays plc, the holding company for the Barclays Group.
On 18 March 2020, he became an unpaid minister at the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and it was announced he would become a life peer.

Early life

Gerald Edgar Grimstone was born in August 1949, in Streatham, London, the son of a carpet fitter father. Grimstone has described his father as a "working class intellectual" and a senior member of the UK Communist Party.
He was educated at the Whitgift School, Croydon, and Merton College, Oxford, from where he received a degree in chemistry.

Career

Grimstone worked as a civil servant from 1972-86, then as a director of Schroders from 1986-99.
Grimstone has been chairman of Standard Life since May 2007, deputy chairman of Barclays since January 2016, a non-executive director of Deloitte and the lead non-executive director at the Ministry of Defence.
In October 2018, it was announced that he would step down as chairman of Standard Life Aberdeen on 1 January 2019 to be succeeded by Sir Douglas Flint.

Honours

Grimstone was a knighted in the 2014 Birthday Honours, and received the accolade from the Prince of Wales on 6 February 2015. On 8 April 2020 he was created Baron Grimstone of Boscobel, of Belgravia in the City of Westminster.

Personal life

In 1973, Grimstone married Hon. Janet Elizabeth Gudrun Suenson-Taylor, daughter of the 2nd Baron Grantchester; they had a son and two daughters before divorcing in 1995.