ROGER CARR did not serve in the Army, but he has a soldier’s zeal when it comes to the boardroom. He talks about “liberating” value from underperforming businesses, and keeps a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War close at hand.

As a young executive at Williams Holdings, the rapacious Eighties conglomerate, Carr led the Williams “hit squad” that was sent in to kick victims into shape. He is an admirer of “Neutron” Jack Welch, the ruthless former General Electric chief executive, who laid waste to legions of workers in his quest to unlock value.

Yet he seems harmless enough, holding court in an anonymous West End office. With his bushy eyebrows and serious spectacles, Carr is the embodiment of the modern British chairman. He is one of a trio of former Williams executives who have collected some notable boardroom positions.

Carr chairs Centrica, the British Gas parent, and Mitchells & Butlers, the pubs and restaurants group. He is also deputy chairman of Cadbury Schweppes. Sir Nigel Rudd, the former Williams front man, is chairman of Boots, Pilkington and Pendragon (the car distributor) and deputy chairman of Barclays.

In something of a consolation prize, the “third man” at Williams, Brian McGowan, is chairman of Rentokil Initial, the troubled hygiene-to-pest control group.

The Williams story dates from 1981 when Rudd and McGowan bought W Williams and Sons, a moribund Welsh foundry. Rudd, chairman, was the bombastic front man while McGowan, chief executive, chased the deals. Over the next decade, Williams was transformed into a sprawling conglomerate that took in household names such as Chubb, the security business, and Kidde, the fire protection group. It bought more than 100 companies.

Carr joined in 1982 and set up Williams’s much-feared special operations department, or “hit squad”. With each acquisition, Carr and his associates swooped in a fleet of black BMWs.

To quote Sun Tzu: “When plumes of dust are seen, chariots are approaching.”

Carr says that the squad was integral to Williams’s success. “They were a very small, elite team of first-class professionals — accountants, marketers and production people. In the early days, what we were buying, effectively, were low-quality, under-managed, difficult engineering businesses and we needed to recover them quite quickly in order to bring performance out. So, you haven’t got a lot of time and you have to apply it with conviction and energy. The team did that. And the more they did it, the better they got at it.”

Carr was appointed managing director of Williams in 1988.

McGowan stood down as chief executive in 1993 after a failed bid for Racal, the electronics group. Carr replaced him and carried on until 2000, when Williams demerged into Chubb and Kidde.

Carr cites teaming up with Rudd as one of the seminal moments of his career. Interestingly, he makes no reference to McGowan, although he later telephones to emphasise that they are “good friends” and there is no bad blood between them.

Carr was born in 1946 in Nottingham and led a “comfortable middle class” childhood. His father, John, ran the main Ford dealership in Nottingham. His mother, Kathleen, taught ballet. Although not poor, the Carrs were never rolling in cash. “Money was not something that was there by right,” Carr reflects. “My father built his life and one had to set out on exactly the same journey.”

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