Neil Shaw
Sir Neil Shaw was a Canadian-born British businessman, who led Tate & Lyle and the Lloyd's of London. He was knighted in 1994 for his contributions to the food industry and community service.
Early life and education
Neil McGowan Shaw was born in Montreal, Quebec, in 1929 to Major Harold Leroy Shaw and his French-born wife, Fabiola. Raised bilingually in French and English, he attended Lower Canada College.The family's circumstances changed when his father's illness forced a move from Montreal to the village of Knowlton. Following his father's death, Shaw left school to work as a bank teller at the Royal Bank of Canada.
Career
Tate & Lyle
In 1955, Shaw began his career in the sugar industry as an executive assistant at Canada and Dominion Sugar, later acquired by Tate & Lyle. He relocated to the UK in 1963 and became a T&L director in 1975.Appointed group chief executive in 1981, Shaw took control of T&L when its market value had shrunk to £60 million. He initiated a major turnaround by closing the company's 110-year-old Liverpool refinery, divesting from an unprofitable artificial sweetener venture named Zymaise, and expanding into the US corn syrup and sugar markets. Although attempted acquisitions of Brooke Bond and the British Sugar Corporation were unsuccessful, Shaw's leadership saw T&L's valuation grow to £2 billion by the time he retired.
During his tenure, Shaw oversaw the company's shift toward research-based food ingredients. This resulted in the 1991 launch of the low-calorie sweetener Sucralose, marketed as Splenda. A staunch defender of sugar, which he called a "natural food," Shaw often dismissed criticism of its health effects, noting a teaspoon contained only 16 calories.