His Grace the Duke of Westminster, KG OBE TD DL, whose London office building is in a street named after his family, is not perhaps your typical entrepreneur. Indeed, he dislikes the term and says he doesn’t like to think of it applied to him.
Nevertheless, semantics aside, the Duke’s company does take calculated risks, and is – however carefully it is phrased – seizing and exploiting the opportunities espied in the global property market. Sorry, Your Grace, but there’s no getting away from it. You seek opportunities; you undertake ventures. You’re an enterprising cove, and no mistake.
After all, the family assets were, when Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor inherited the estate and title from his father in 1979, substantial enough to ensure that the sixth duke could live out his life in extreme comfort without lifting a finger or exercising a brain cell. Instead he prefers to take the very thoroughly calculated long term risk of building, amongst other schemes worldwide, Europe’s largest retail development in Liverpool, changing the face of the city and giving immensely valuable credence to its revival.
The entrepreneurial traits are all there – the enviable levels of energy, the vision, the ability to pick good people, the work ethic, and the confidence. ‘The work ethic came from my parents,’ he says. ‘My father was very involved in the organisation and his example was my greatest legacy.’ He is passing that on to his children, who are also working. ‘It’s vital,’ he says.
‘I took over the organisation when I was 20 or 21; we had marvellous staff, and Jimmy James, the first chief executive, licked me into shape.’
Communication is key, he explains. ‘It’s a lost art – these days we seem to have forgotten how to talk to each other.’ He illustrates his point with a story from the latest refurbishment of his offices in Mayfair. ‘The architects asked me if I wanted a private lift. I told them that the day I can’t travel in the same lift as my staff is the day I should quit.............
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