The Sir Ian Wood Story
THE UNTOLD STORY OF SIR IAN WOOD: THE BILLIONAIRE WHO REWROTE SCOTLAND’S INDUSTRIAL LEGACY.
The definitive journey through the rise of one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures in modern business history—Sir Ian Wood transformed his small family fishing boat repair company into a $12 billion global juggernaut. His company, Wood Group, at its peak, commanded a workforce of 60,000 across 60 countries, while Sir Ian amassed a personal fortune over £2 billion. But behind the polished success lies a tempestuous tale of ambition, sacrifice, betrayal, and an unrelenting pursuit of power.
Sir Ian’s story is no ordinary rise to fame—it’s a story characterised by Money, Greed, and the desperate clamour for Industry Domination. Sir Ian guided his business into the Oil & Gas industry when Oil was discovered on Britain’s shores in the early 1970s. What began as a quiet transition into oil services became a sprawling empire that spanned energy, shipping, technology, offshore drilling, real estate development, and much more. Under his leadership Aberdeen transformed from a small parochial fishing town into the epicentre of Europe's energy industry.
His true story has remained buried in the shadows, cloaked in whispers, and guarded by those fearing fallout of its revelation. But now, for the first time, the veil is lifted in a bombshell account that lays bare the murky cutthroat deals that built his Wood Group empire, and also what built the man himself. This tell-all book plunges readers into the high-stakes world of the Aberdeen oil industry, exposing how Sir Ian's relentless ambition reshaped not just a company, but an entire Industry.
His legacy? A tale for the ages—one that see’s Sir Ian and his achievements stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greatest entrepreneurs in all of history.
Book Review Pre Official Publication
An astonishing look into the life of a man I had never heard of until I was asked to proof read this book. His story is amazing and this book was genuinely impossible to put down.
Maxine Turner
Book Prologue and Sir Ians Legacy
Sir Ian Wood is one of the most remarkable entrepreneurs to emerge in Britain in the last 60 years. He has been part of nearly every major happening in the Oil & Gas Industry since the Industries humble UK beginnings in the late 1960s. A man underrated, quiet, reclusive, and devoid of ego, he is widely recognised as the human symbol of the British Oil & Gas Industry.
His Grandfather William Wood (Originally a trawler skipper from Ross shire in North Scotland) moved to Aberdeen around 1904 with Sir Ian’s grandmother Williamina and her 10 children. William started a small fishing boat repair business in the summer of 1912; however, William discovered and purchased an old, abandoned fishing trawler decaying in water in Torry harbour near Aberdeen, he repaired it himself with finance being provided by his business partner Anthony Davidson for repair materials. The company Wood & Davidson was born. Williams youngest son John took over the running of family business after William’s death in 1938, and later bought out his siblings and Williams original business partner Anthony Davidson. In July 1942 John and his wife Margaret, brought their only son into the world "Ian" . Little could they have imagined, Ian would transform that small family business into an internationally recognised Energy Industry powerhouse, and in the process making him the most successful businessman in the history of Northeast Scotland.
Sir Ian’s psychological makeup is one of continuous progress and achievement. There isn’t a yesterday, only today and tomorrow. As is true of the great achievers, he never felt content with his own achievements. All success and achievement did was simply open his mind to the enlightenment that his achievements simply were not good enough. His experience is forever one of “Gold Medal” syndrome. His, merely another step on the achiever’s eternal ladder where the true success climb doesn’t have a height limit and is never achieved. A life that shall remain a continued pursuit of perfection and unfulfillment.
Sir Ian wasn't like most fathers, he was rarely on the touchline of his children’s football games, nor did he make enough time to watch them in the school play, and nor did he dedicate himself as a husband. Sir Ian was constantly at the coal face of his empire, confronting head on every challenge thrust in his direction, dealing with Prime Ministers, presidents, governments, rivals, and his own board, never backing down, but thriving on it, adversity and challenge forged him into a success, and his ability to deal with those crisis moments setting him apart from his wider peer group. He traded off, being a husband, father and friend, to build, forge and grow the companies he founded. Extremely self-aware and appreciating with hindsight, that given the same life to live all over again, his life choices likely would not likely be any different to those of the path he chose to walk.
Left with his own thoughts, he remains tormented and cannot escape his mind, and is to a degree, trapped inside. A constant stream of ideas and challenges flow through, many stones left unturned. whether making society better, here or in Africa, or developing the next world saving medical technology, to securing his home city as the renewable energy capital of the world. While being left in those quiet moments dealing with an idea so unrealistic, so unachievable, so ridiculous, Yet the “What If” so profound if it can be delivered, dominates his mind.
He won't be recognised and talked about in the same breath as the well known entrepreneurs of our era, simply because he doesn't court publicity, but he won’t be looking over his shoulder for the tap of greatness coming from beyond his own achievements. His achievements are remarkable, and his business achievements are as great as any in history. Despite a wider perception, he was not handed his life on a plate, none of his success came with ease. He solely was the founder of Wood Group, creator of its products and its success, and the company has no legacy connection to anything his father or grandfather started before him. His father John vociferously opposed taking the company into the Oil Industry, and Ian did so against his wishes.
Aberdeen owes Sir Ian Wood a far greater debt than it would ever care to appreciate. His efforts were instrumental in bringing the Oil & Gas Industry to the city of Aberdeen through his purchase and subsequent multi £million redevelopment of the former John Lewis shipyard in 1972. He created the first new engineering and fabrication Oil jobs in the city, bringing work only his yard could accommodate. This catalyst brought to Aberdeen the first of the large Oil companies who were starting to explore and prospect for Oil in British Waters at the dawn of the Oil age. His early success saw his companies create jobs which would have simply gone elsewhere. The discovery of the Brent and Forties Oil fields in the early 70s, didn’t guarantee riches or long-term prosperity for the city of Aberdeen, the Industry was seen as a fad, here today gone tomorrow, Ian made business bets and Invested against the general narrative. Most doubted there would be any real long-term change for the city. Dundee had been the port of choice for the Oil Industry, with a more natural harbour and was more centrally located in Scotland. What Dundee didn’t have:- was a Sir Ian Wood, a swashbuckling fighter, prepared to invest millions of borrowed money, without any guarantee of winning the business needed to support paying it back. Sir Ian was merely going on a hunch, a gut feeling, albeit a very strong and calculated one, that the Oil industry would surge beyond anything any British Industry had ever seen before.
His underappreciated legacy stretches deeper than simply Oil & fishing. He galvanised the city's Civic leaders such as Sir Maitland Mackie and others in the 1970s, to make the changes to infrastructure needed for the city to be ready for the new age coming. He inspired and motivated Aberdeen’s Harbour board and pushed them to rebuild and modernise the entire harbour system in Aberdeen, for the sleeping giant that was the Oil Industry of the early 1970s. He led the harbour team through the transition from being a city of fishing to a city of Oil, a financial legacy it still enjoys today. More than three million people have worked through his companies in Aberdeen and beyond over the last forty years. These jobs would simply have disappeared to a more industrially advanced city in the UK or Norway without him. Aberdeen and Aberdonians are part of the “Lucky Generation”. Those today take for granted how different life in Aberdeen may have been had Oil not been discovered on the shores of the North Sea. Will the ignorance of future generations look back once Sir Ian is gone and ask the question:” What did you leave us”, instead of appreciating what he “did for us”?
Sir Ian didn't have the ability to lead a normal life. His calling was always higher than where he was at a given point in time. Lounging around for an hour watching TV or washing the car for therapeutic reasons, never an option. His mind simply could not stay away from his business through his fear of its failure, his constant pursuit of perfection and of his fear for his own personal failure. Money was never a driving force behind anything he did, and its importance little to him, that continues to this day with a well earned fortune approaching £2bn. The idea of displaying wealth makes him uncomfortable and awkward. Money was only of interest to allow him to grow his company, take it to the next level. Throughout his life he needed to prove he was good enough, whether on the sports field facing the might of the All Blacks, or in the boardroom staring at an annual report with annual sales at his beloved Wood Group hitting $6bn. Never arrogant enough to consider himself a success, he simply felt he had done moderately well, but always had the next mountain to climb. This writer had an opinion of Sir Ian before starting this book. It had been formed through ignorance, and in part from what I had read or been told in the absence of real information from any source of truth. The opinion was “a hugely financially successful man”, but distinctly average, leaving little legacy except for himself, whose success was built off the back of others' brilliance. An arrogant, ill informed, baseless characterisation formed by little more than rumour. This author ignorantly failed to correlate that the role of a great leader is to do “just that”, bring the best people together and set off his team to collect the fruits of success generated by that collective group; no successful person has ever been “self-made”. My journey throughout his life and achievements has left my opinion with no resemblance to the one I had at the start of writing this book.
This book uncovers one of the most astonishing business stories of our age, and of any age. Charismatic, devoid of ego, and outwardly introverted, but secure and confident he is without doubt amongst the greatest business leaders in any company in any country at any time in history. His is a story of one of huge risk, strategy, and making huge decisions against the odds, wishes and recommendations of all those around him, guiding his business through success, tragedy, and failure and above all applying huge personal dedication to work, focused on the direction needed, to make his companies a success. Judging overall success by the collection of riches alone, he may not be Bill Gates, John D Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie, however measuring success by achievement, tenacity, work ethic, sheer force of will, and an ability to build and lead teams which have changed the way entire Industries operate, Sir Ian has few peers and casts the same shadow of business greatness equal to any of those names listed above.
If we are to look for the greatest Scottish Business leaders throughout history, Andrew Carnegie sits on his own as the most recognised and greatest Scots business leader in our country’s history, not just for the wealth he created but for the business and wealth he created then gave away.
Second on that list of greatness sits:- “Sir Ian Clark Wood”.
