Tom McKillop

Sir Thomas Fulton Wilson "Tom" McKillop, FRS (born 19 March 1943) is a Scottish chemist, who was CEO of AstraZeneca PLC from 1999 until 2006 and chairman of the RBS Group from 2006 until 2008.

McKillop was born in Dreghorn, a small village in North Ayrshire. He was educated at Irvine Royal Academy and then Glasgow University, where he took a BSc (Hons) and PhD in Chemistry. He joined the ICI Petrochemical & Polymer Laboratory (later renamed the ICI Corporate Laboratory) at Runcorn in 1969 after post-doctoral research work in Paris. He moved to ICI Pharmaceuticals Division in 1975 and, having held a number of positions in Research, in 1989 he was appointed Technical Director of ICI with international responsibilities for research, development and production.

In 1993, ICI Pharmaceuticals demerged to become Zeneca, and in 1994 he was appointed chief executive officer of the new company. In April 1999, Zeneca merged with Astra to form AstraZeneca PLC. McKillop became chief executive officer (CEO) of the merged company. He retired from AstraZeneca on 1 January 2006, when David Brennan took over as AstraZeneca's CEO. McKillop became the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). His brother, Alexander "Sandy" McKillop, was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of East Anglia from 1970–96.

McKillop chaired RBS during the tenure of CEO Fred Goodwin, who promoted aggressive expansion of the bank by acquiring other banks. From the time that Goodwin took over as chief executive until 2007, RBS's assets quadrupled, its cost-to-income ratio improved markedly, and its profits soared. In 2006 pre-tax profits climbed 16% to £9.2 billion with most of the growth coming from its investment banking business. By 2008 RBS was the fifth-largest bank in the world by market capitalisation. One of the factors in its rise was its enthusiasm for supporting leveraged buyouts. In 2008 it lent $9.3bn, more than double its nearest rival.

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