The best companies, in my view, tend to have the best leaders. One of the very best companies in Gloucestershire is Renishaw, and its co-founder and executive chairman is Sir David McMurtry.

Sir David has now decided to step down from his role at the ripe old age of 84,although he will still remain on the Renishaw board as a non-executive director. He is quite an amazing man. Sir David is an absolute titanic figure in the world of specialist engineering and innovation .He founded Renishaw more than 50 years ago with his friend and fellow engineer, John Deer.

The company’s first product was a touch-trigger probe invented by Sir David to solve a specific inspection requirement for the Rolls-Royce Olympus engines used in Concorde. Under Sir David’s leadership, Renishaw has created thousands of jobs in Gloucestershire and around the world..

It has become our county’s biggest privately owned company and now employs 3 300 people in the UK. For the financial year ending June 2023, Renishaw’s revenues were £688.6 million. Something over 90 per cent of their revenues are in export. I always found Sir David an understated man, who despite his wealth, always had the Renishaw people at his heart.

I remember some years ago seeing him at a Stroud Council meeting where I was attending about a campaign I was running to help young people to afford to live in the area and settle. Sir David was at that same meeting- hoping to convince councillors that his young people needed to have affordable housing. That was the man-always thinking of his people. I am told that even in his eighties, he still regularly comes to the headquarters office at Wotton-under Edge. And he is extremely philanthropic as a wealthy man but keeps his giving and charity work very much hidden.

Another of our leaders in Gloucestershire, Clare Marchant, Vice Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, has just been appointed a Dame in the King’s Birthday Honors. She left Ucas in Cheltenham after six years last September and was a former chief executive of Worcestershire County council. Like Sir David, Clare is a real leader. We need more leaders of their calibre to grow business and our people.