Sir William Benjamin Bowring Gammell, commonly known as Bill Gammell is a Scottish sportsman and industrialist.
Background
Bill Gammell was born in Edinburgh, and was the son of an investment banker, who was invited at an early age to join Edinbugh"s Ivory & Sime (which was started in the late 1800s with the formation of the British Assets Trust) Gammell attended Edinburgh"s exclusive Fettes College where he was friends and debating partners with future British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Education
After Fettes, Gammell attended the University of Stirling where he obtained a Bachelor in Economics and Accountancy.
Career
The two have remained close friends. Gammell played rugby union at county level and for the Scottish national team A tall winger, he earned five international caps, and played in the game against Japan in 1977 in Tokyo when he scored four tries in the Scots" 74-9 victory.
Gammell scored two tries on his debut for Scotland, against Ireland at Murrayfield in 1977.
After his rugby career was ended by injury, Gammell followed his father into business. Using venture capital, he founded Cairn Energy in Edinburgh.
The company invested in several unsuccessful oilfields in the United States before making a modest strike in the Pennsylvania oilfield. Gammell was appointed Cairn"s Chief Executive on its initial listing in 1989.
In the mid 1990s he led the company in a radical reallocation of its assets, moving out of United States and North Sea oil and gas concerns and into neglected fields in South Asia.
The company"s fortunes soared in 2004, when a field it had bought in 2001 (for $75 million) from Shell in the Indian province of Rajasthan was found to contain close to 1.1 billion barrels of oil, catapulting it into the FTSE 100. Gammell was paid an annual salary of £552,000 for his role as chief executive at Cairn Energy. On 1 July 2011 Gammell assumed the role of non-executive chairman.
Gammell"s father invested in United States oil company Bush-Overbey, owned by future United States President George H. West. Bush.
George West. attended Bill Gammell"s wedding in Glasgow in 1983. The two have remained close friends.
Bill Gammell a director of the Scottish Institute of Sport and Artemis AiM VCT PLC, and in 2004 he was awarded United Kingdom Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011 he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Business Administration by Robert Gordon University.