UK Packaging Awards 2008 – Outstanding Contribution

Winner

Peter Williams

Peter Williams has left an indelible mark on the UK and European packaging industry.

He began his career working in the forests of his native Canada. But after coming to the UK in the 1980s, his legendary eye for a deal led to him buying RPC Group from SCA in a management buyout in 1991. The deal sowed the seeds of what has become the leading European plastic packaging group. As chief executive and later chairman, a role from which he retired only this summer, he is seen as the man behind RPC’s growth.

While his dealmaking created RPC as we know it, his management acumen as chief executive of DS Smith led the corrugated specialist to become the multi-billion-pound group it is today. A brave decision added counter-cyclical stationery business Spicer’s to DS Smith’s paper and packaging set-up. Williams was arguably ahead of his time in developing Severnside Recycling, and the plastics arm of DS Smith that specialises in returnable transit packs, as part of the business.

Colleagues describe Williams as an unassuming and convivial Canadian who, according to one, displays an extraordinary knowledge of packaging “but never makes you feel like you’re an idiot”. His great skill, according to another colleague, is to identify good management and “defend it fearlessly”, and to stay positive even when the chips are down.

Perhaps that’s why he’s made a success of other business interests outside of packaging – his directorships have covered the private equity and IT sectors.

This award was sposored by Mercury Search & Selection

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