He was outed from “deep deep in the closet” by the Mail on Sunday, which published a kiss-and-tell from his Brazilian lover, Jeff Chevalier, a former escort. She played an outsize role in his corporate career: Browne claimed it was to protect his mother, an Auschwitz survivor, that he hid his homosexuality for decades. In pride of place is a framed picture of Browne’s late mother, clutching a bright red handbag. He’s a slight figure, in a pink shirt and blue blazer, with tortoiseshell glasses. There’s Browne dappled, reflected in a mirror and Browne standing by a chopping board, a half-cut crusty loaf in front of him (“I can’t even cook,” he laughs). At the top of the spiral staircase hangs a collection of portraits of Browne by the acclaimed German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans.
His personal library is filled floor-to-ceiling with tomes on every era of art. W e meet at Browne’s townhouse in Chelsea just as Sunak is delivering his mini-budget. And exciting people, and interesting places.” How he relaxes “The ballet, the theatre, opera and art. My first book was called Beyond Business, and the climate growth venture I co-founded and now chair is called BeyondNetZero.” Word he overuses “I love the word ‘beyond’. As a result, I entered BP as a trainee, and the rest is history.”īiggest career mistake “Not coming out as gay earlier.” Last holiday Venice, “my favourite place on earth” (where he has a second home).īest advice he has been given “My father once told me to ‘get a proper job’. Pay “Nowadays, I’m quite self-sufficient.”
These days he’s busy with his latest venture, the green investor BeyondNetZero.įamily “Successfully developing a new partnership.”Įducation The King’s School, Ely MA in physics from St John’s College, Cambridge and an MS in business from Stanford University, California. His buccaneering dealmaking cemented the oil giant’s place in the global game – including its controversial expansion in Russia – while he received millions in pay and bonuses each year. The man the financial press dubbed the “Sun King” racked up 41 years at BP, the latter 12 as chief executive until 2007. It included a failed rebranding of BP as “Beyond Petroleum” that some labelled as greenwashing. His conveniently timed conversion to the cause of climate change has been met with some scepticism. But I think it’s right to be helping people with their bills.” So there are issues like that: the costs need to be thought through. “The government took forever to get it organised and didn’t trust anybody to tell them what the price of oil was, so fixed the tax higher than it was. He remembers a windfall tax in the early 1980s which led to companies paying more than 100% tax. When you add a windfall profits tax on top, we just need to be careful how you do it.”
And designing a system which allows you to do all that properly – it has always been complex. However, the crossbench peer warns: “Profits should be taxed, but costs need to be thought through very carefully because you should get the ability to write off your capital as you go forward, as well as your operating costs. “I’ve had windfall taxes exercised on me by many jurisdictions in many places.” “It’s right and proper: those windfalls belong to the nation, not to companies,” says Browne.