Kenneth Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre
Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox person
Kenneth Alexander Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre (30 August 1916 – 1 September 2004) was a British businessman and banker.
Keith was knighted in the 1969 Queen's Birthday Honours List<ref name="Burke's">Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 2, page 2124.</ref> and was created a life peer as Baron Keith of Castleacre, of Swaffham in the County of Norfolk on 6 February 1980.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
He presided over the mergers that formed the British merchant bank Hill Samuel, and also chaired Rolls-Royce after the company's receivership and subsequent nationalisation in 1971, helping to organise the recovery of the RB211 project. After retiring from those chairmanships in 1980 he was chairman of STC and of Beecham.
"We (Rolls-Royce) added a zero to his stature; he used to think £5 million a lot of money, but after a few weeks on the RB211 he came to understand that £50 million is peanuts." – Stanley Hooker.<ref>"World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines – 5th edition" by Bill Gunston, Sutton Publishing, 2006, p. vii</ref>
References
Template:Use dmy dates Template:Authority control Template:UK-business-bio-1910s-stub Template:Life-peer-stub