Lord Browne: 'There's only one openly gay CEO in the Fortune 500...There has to be more'

See Lord Browne Of Madingley Speak At MT’s Future Of Work Conference On 23 June

I started my life on ships and planes. My father was a British Army officer who later worked for Anglo-Persian Oil [now BP] so we were constantly travelling. After much resistance from my mother, who thought the idea of boarding school was primitive, I was sent to study at King’s Ely in Cambridgeshire. I couldn’t stand it. I hated the regimentation and I was teased.

I studied physics at Cambridge and considered staying on to do academic research. But my father, a very practical man, told me I had to get a ‘real’ job. I joined BP as a university apprentice in 1966 and learned my trade as a petroleum engineer in Alaska’s frozen tundra.