(2 of 2)
New Chairman Edwardes, consequently, will have time to try to make sense out of Leyland's disorganized management structure. He succeeds Sir Richard Dobson, who hastened his own departure by making injudicious remarks about Leyland "bribing Wogs"—a reference to allegations of overseas payoffs by Leyland. Dobson spoke at a private dinner party, but a guest tape-recorded his comments, and they were later published.
Edwardes, 47, is a 5-ft. 2-in. dynamo who has proved himself as a manager: as chief of the 20,000 employee battery-making Chloride Group, he almost quintupled profits in five years to $47.5 million. He won the Guardian Young Businessman of the Year award in 1975. Though he will have to negotiate a companywide pact, Edwardes is a fervent believer in decentralized management who pledges to use "ruthless logic" in organizing executive teams to run Leyland as a group of "profit centers." He had better hurry.
His appointment is for three years—at an annual salary equal to his Chloride $93,000—and government officials make it clear that they regard those three years as giving Edwardes a "last chance" to save the company.