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The UK Defence Industry in the 21 Century
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The Five Forces of Americanisation

About the author

Richard Hooke BA MBA FRAeS

Richard Hooke has worked in the aerospace & defence industry for over forty years, in over 25
countries across four continents, from factory floor to boardroom, in civil aerospace and in defence:
as a BAE group senior executive, division director and Group CEO’s Chief of Staff; as a management
consultant, as a corporate and investment banker and as an independent company adviser. He was
Global Aerospace & Defence Leader at PwC and subsequently Head of Aerospace and Defence
Worldwide at The Royal Bank of Scotland (now NatWest) before becoming an independent director
and adviser.
Richard’s clients include government agencies and industrial corporations, financial institutions and
public and private investors.
He has written and presented a number of papers on the industry’s development, speaking at
conferences around the world, from Shanghai, Seoul and Singapore to Washington DC and Montreal
and from Paris and London to Helsinki, Stockholm and Madrid. For over ten years, Richard was a
visiting lecturer in Defence Economics at the Cranfield University/UK Defence Academy MBA
(Defence) programme. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society where, as a member of its
Learned Society Board, he led a governance and compliance review, receiving its Distinguished Service
Award in 2019.

Richard is now adviser to an international business consultancy, a member of Kingston University’s
student mentoring scheme and a professional artist, exhibiting and selling his work through a gallery
in Dorset.
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For balance, the reader should note that Richard had a long and intimate association with BAE
Systems.
He was awarded the Hawker Shield on completing his undergraduate apprenticeship in the military
aircraft division at Kingston/Dunsfold before becoming Chief of Staff to the Group Chief Executive,
Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo.
In 1992, with BAE on the brink of financial collapse caused by the failure of its Regional Jet business,
he led a management bid to acquire BAE Corporate Jets, offered for sale within BAE’s financial recovery
programme. Financed by Apax Partners and NatWest Acquisition Finance, with a proposed Employee
Share Ownership Plan financed by the Co-operative Bank, his team agreed a bid deadline with BAE’s
then Finance Director and set to work accordingly. However, BAE’s new US-based Chairman
terminated discussions and announced a sale to Raytheon Corporation of the USA. Threatened with
legal action should he attempt publicly to announce a bid, Richard was subsequently dismissed by the
Company.
In 2003, whilst a Director at PwC, Richard was appointed the firm’s BAE Systems Global Relationship
Partner.
In 2008, as Managing Director, Global Banking & Markets, he became the Royal Bank of Scotland’s
Senior Relationship Banker for BAE Systems.

July, 2025

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