Robin Southwell


Robin Southwell, OBE, is a British businessman. He is the UK head of the aerospace company EADS. He was born on 10 April 1960, the son of Peter and Susan Southwell, and lives in Cobham, Surrey. He was educated at Finchley Manor Hill Comprehensive school in Barnet and studied economics and history at the University of Hull.

Career

He worked for British Aerospace from 1981 to 2000. From 2001 to 2002 he was CEO of W S Atkins. He joined EADS in January 2003, initially as CEO of Airtanker Ltd. In July 2005 he was appointed CEO of EADS UK.

Other appointments

Other appointments include:
In 1988 he married Sally Deakin and they have one son and one daughter.

Controversy

On 10 May 2014, The Independent newspaper published a report detailing the circumstances surrounding the demise of the company Corporate Jet Services. This company collapsed in 2007, owing its main creditor, HBOS, about £100m. Robin Southwell said via his lawyers that he "was appointed by HBOS to assist a company in difficulty and was only ever a non-executive director that acted on the bank's instructions".