Disarming honesty of a titan industry

THE GLASS CLOSET: WHY COMING OUT IS GOOD business by John Browne (WH Allen, £16.99)

Sexuality lies near the core of individual identity and that is certainly true of John, now Lord Browne, onetime chief executive of BP. His paranoia that his homosexuality should be repressed, or at least hidden, is fundamental to understanding how this 5ft 4in intellectual, who lived with his mother, came to rise to the top of the oil industry, how he transformed BP into one of the great British businesses of the past half-century, and how he fell from grace. He has also bravely made it the subject of his latest book, a personal plea that both companies and individuals should be more accepting and supportive of gay and lesbian people.

Like so many gays who come out dramatically, the real surprise with Browne was that he believed it was something his friends and colleagues did not already know and accept. Just about everybody who knew him guessed Browne was gay — and that he consequently often used to bring his mother Paula to events. The concern was that this was plainly a side of his character with which he himself wrestled, unsuccessfully.

He admits that, for decades, he was a very lonely person who threw himself into work. BP became his life. It was frequently the case that he would have nothing much to do at weekends or during holidays and so he would work some more or rely on business acquaintances for friendship.

Even when he acquired an apartment in Venice, a stay there would be used to conjure up new business ideas. He is a polymath, and perhaps while gazing at the perfection of St Mark's Square, he imagined his company into a work of art of his own.

His achievements were many. During his tenure the market value of BP quintupled. He made large acquisitions in America and signed a major joint venture in Russia. By constructing the BTC pipeline he transformed Azerbaijan and enabled the West to access Caspian oil without going via Russia. He was the first international chief executive to admit the issue of climate change and he lavished sponsorship on the British Museum, the Tate and the Royal Opera House.

As with Venice in its pomp, however, all was not as it appeared. In parallel with his own secret life, BP was not doing as well as his many fans hoped. The alternative energy investments were often failures; his Russian partners were troublesome; and safety and operational failures emerged — most seriously in the explosion at the Texas City refinery which tragically killed 15 people [the Gulf of Mexico incident occurred two years after he resigned]. Soon the press was full of stories of Browne falling out with the BP chairman Peter Sutherland.

Then a final disaster struck. The Mail on Sunday threatened to expose that his ex-partner Jeff Chevalier was actually a rent boy. He discloses a text from Chevalier he received just prior to this revelation: "The least I am asking for is assistance. I do not want to embarrass you, but I am being cornered by your lack of response to my myriad attempts at communication."

Instead of responding "Publish and be damned", as he should have, Browne fought a doomed legal action against the newspaper and had to resign after confessing he initially lied to the court by claiming he had met Chevalier running in Battersea Park.

All this essentially embarrassing series of events is narrated with disarming honesty in what is as much autobiography as manifesto for change. He has recovered from the calamity, given up his prodigious cigar smoking and, by coming out, forged a better, more contented life with his new partner, a Vietnamese financier called Nghi Nguyen. He now works in private equity, championing shale gas as a source of cheap energy and advising the Coalition Government. Others should learn from his bizarre experience, because it is a tale of redemption, recovery and of how the Sun King also rises.

George Trefgarne worked for Lord Browne at BP as his speechwriter.

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