Tim Bettany - MBA
Tim Bettany became a Cranfield MBA student in 1969 and took up the option available at the time to complete the programme at Harvard where he graduated in 1970. After spending some time with Shell Oil he progressed to pursue an entrepreneurial career. This initially involved a successful management buy out with 3 colleagues of the Capetown Gas, Coke & Light Works, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was renamed Pentos plc and became a successful mini conglomerate in the 1970's. Tim's major contribution was to move to South Africa and sell the trading operations to the local government, whilst there he met his wife Renee who moved back to London with him where they started a family. In the mid 1970's he left Pentos and moved to Jersey where he was a founder of Ashburton Securities Ltd which grew into a high performing investment management company acting for many South African based clients. This business was sold to a major financial group in the late 1990's and Tim bought a Chateau in Saix, France. Towards the end of his career Tim wanted to ensure that others benefited from the entrepreneurial education which he received at Cranfield. This initially entailed his participation in the MBA class of 1969's scholarships to help people from less well off backgrounds to do an MBA at Cranfield. However, later he felt that he wanted to give something back to Cranfield in order to help build their entrepreneurship programme to even greater international heights and took the bold and generous step to endow the School with a Chair of Entrepreneurship underpinned with a personal donation £1.25 million, the largest single donation ever made to Cranfield. This has formed the bedrock upon which the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurial Performance and Economics has been built.
Tim's approach to business was manifested by hard work, intellectual rigour, enjoyment of business and the highest ethical standards. He expected people to be honest both personally and intellectually, fair-minded, creative, make their best effort to analyse and question everything, and ensure they had investigated all avenues. These same values and approaches to entrepreneurial business form the culture which is in embedded in all aspects of the Bettany Centre's activities. Tim was a gregarious, energetic person with a zest for life and great sense of humour. He loved travel, good company, and good food and wine. Among his final initiatives when he was at the end of a long period of illness was to demand that there should be no mourning, no black and only brightly dressed people at his funeral (good man Tim!). This was so well attended that there was little standing room left at the service. Few people could have provided such an excellent role model for anyone who wants to know the characteristics that make entrepreneurs successful.
Andrew Burke
Cyril Freedman
David Thompson
October 2006