Obituaries: Bill Adam, mechanical engineer, businessman and financial adviser

He traced his Scottish roots to Matthew Adam, Rector of the Royal Academy of Inverness, 1811-1839. His peripatetic father, William Wakefield Adam, was an inventor and engineer. His mother was Gilda Gervasia (née Epifani). Both parents are buried in Edinburgh.

An uncle, Matthew Atkinson Adam, was a partner of Sir Dugald Clerk in the firm of Marks & Clerk, patent agents, and a Council Member of the Institution of Automobile Engineers,

Born in Lincoln, Bill’s family moved in 1923 to Madrid. Education ran in the family, and Bill and his elder brother by nine years, Henry, attended George Watson’s College, Bill gaining Highers in History, Literature, Mathematics and Languages.

The brothers were complementary, Henry a medical scientist, Bill the applied engineer. Henry collected a large library, and together the brothers formed a “virtual” board, composed of figures from history whose views they could apply to contemporary problems. The oldest was the legendary Egyptian architect, Imhotep; Bill’s favourite, Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam.

Bill spent one year in medical studies, but then transferred to engineering, first at Brighton Technical College. After one year he decided to work at Napier Aero Engine works, as a route to becoming a Chartered Engineer and qualifying for membership of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He undertook further engineering studies at Kingston Polytechnic, 1940-1942, then completed his training with the Royal Navy, 1942-1943, gaining his CEng (Aeronautical Engineering).

During World War II, Bill served in the Royal Navy at HMS Peewit, by Arbroath, Angus, working on aero-engines. There he celebrated VE Day, while mourning the loss of servicemen whom he had trained. He was demobbed as Lieutenant (Air Engineer), RN. To the Royal Navy he ascribed his learning leadership, something that would remain a constant theme in his life.

Aged 26, he was recruited by John Summers & Sons Ltd of Shotton, sent out as Chief Engineer to their Anglo-Argentine Iron Co Ltd, Buenos Aires, to modernise a steel processing plant. This experience reinforced the importance of understanding different cultures, different ways of doing things, to which the arts and humanities contributed crucial knowledge, skills which repeatedly served him well in future years.

In the late 1950s, Bill was appointed European manager, based in Paris, for the Weir Group, responsible for European sales and service. Bill was then introduced to a Dutch businessman with whom he went into partnership, servicing shipping. On the SS Rotterdam of the Holland-American line, Bill met his future Dutch wife, Trudy (née Majoor), and they married in The Hague in 1961. Together they were a “power couple”.

In 1965-1966 a series of events occurred: they moved to Brussels; Bill, with a reputation for “turnarounds”, was invited to give a paper at Harvard Business School; he set up his own company Adam International BV. Then, out of the blue, he was recruited as Vice-President Europe, by Robert Uihlein of Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co, which by the late 60s had acquired breweries in Seville, Barcelona and Madrid. They were seeking to stem losses and further to penetrate the European market. During this time, Bill hired a young expert in Operational Research, a field to which he had been introduced by Anthony Lines, and in which he admired the work of Peter Drucker and Stafford Beer.

In 1969, Sir Siegmund Warburg and colleagues formed Scienta SV, the first Venture Capital fund in Europe, and in 1971 they invited Bill to be its Managing Director. The board was as powerful as could be, including the Hon Jacob Rothschild, Lord Weinstock and Sir Raymond Appleyard from GEC, Aurelio Peccei, founder of Alitalia and of the Club of Rome, the Agnellis of FIAT, Hans Merkle, of Robert Bosch GmbH, amongst others.

Finding companies warranting venture capital proved difficult. Under his firm, Adam International, Bill worked on a three-year research project: The European Venture Capital Pilot Scheme, the Report of which was published in 1984. He was answerable to DGXIII of the European Commission under Sir Raymond Appleyard. This led to the formation of a European Venture Capital Association, now “Invest Europe”.

In addition, there are several significant organisations founded by William, or of which he was a founding member. For example, he was a founding member of the Institute of Directors, European Branch, and of the European Society for Engineers and Industrialists / Société Européenne des Ingénieurs et Industriels (2004). He himself founded a European Institute for Industrial Leadership (2004), and KEN – The Knowledge Economy Network (2011).

Bill expected strong ethics as a manager. He said, that should an employee be failing in their job, he felt it was his fault, and his responsibility to help the employee to find that role or job in which they could flourish.

I first met Bill and Trudy in 2004, when Bill already was 84, myself 32 years his junior. I was alerted to examine “about 200 science” books, from his late brother’s library, which were looking for a new home. There were actually 3,500. What brought us together were questions as to how not only science, engineering, and technology, but also the arts, humanities and social sciences played interacting roles in life.

Given the fascinating history of William Adam and his family, it is to be hoped that his papers shall be preserved. They warrant further study, and some puzzles remain.

In 2017, together with his cousin, Gianfranco Epifani, Bill installed a marble plaque to his mother, Gilda, in her native Cannara, Perugia. In 2023, sadly, Bill lost his wife of over sixty years, Trudy. I mourn them, and my condolences go to their extended family and friends

Obituaries

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