THE chairman’s office at BAE Systems has been redecorated, but it takes more than a fresh coat of paint to get rid of Sir Richard Evans. His presence lives on in the model warplanes dotted around the room.

Dick Olver knows what it feels like to work in someone’s shadow. He spent 18 months as deputy to Lord (John) Browne of Maddingley, chief executive of BP. At 57, Olver decided to break from the oil group after 31 years and take on one last big assignment to lead him to retirement.

“John’s a very able chief executive and I felt it was probably good for BP if I provided even more space and rather good for me to think about one more challenge,” he says.

He trawled through the FTSE 100 index for a suitable home and settled on two possibilities: Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems. The chairmanship of the former fell vacant with Euan Baird’s ill-health, while Sir Richard was bowing out from BAE Systems after 14 years at the helm. Olver says: “I thought, BAE Systems seems like a bigger challenge.”

He became non-executive chairman in July. Almost from day one, stories circulated about friction with BAE Systems’ chief executive, Mike Turner. Was there any truth in it, I wonder? Olver answers enigmatically. “We are very ambitious for the improvement of our firm. The fact that we’ve got room to travel to improve is a very good thing. It means that everybody can do better.”

He sought to make his mark by announcing a review of BAE’s long-term strategy.

As a BP alumnus, Olver is at the centre of a formidable web of boardroom connections. In the mid-1980s, he worked in corporate planning with Chris Gibson-Smith, now chairman of the London Stock Exchange, and John Buchanan, the New Zealander who holds boardroom posts at Vodafone, AstraZeneca and BHP Billiton. Olver’s predecessor as deputy group chief executive of BP was Rodney Chase, now deputy chairman of Tesco.

BAE Systems is a Boy’s Own outfit, with a toy chest that includes military aircraft, warships, submarines, avionics and guided weapon systems. It owns 20 per cent of Airbus. BAE Systems has sales of £12 billion a year and employs 90,000 people.

Olver’s childhood memories are of Woodford Green in North London in the 1950s. His father was a major in the Army who spent several years in North Africa. Olver emerged from City University with a first in civil engineering. Tiring of “designing the same bridge” over and over, he applied for a job as a civil engineer with BP. He was accepted, but changed his mind upon realising that it entailed a cut in salary.

“About three months later, the phone rang, and this chap said: ‘I don’t think you understand ...’ And they did a sales pitch. They did not change the number. And of course, in three months, I’d designed the same bridge again, and decided this was really not a good idea. So I joined.”

He was singled out for BP’s fast-track management programme. “One of the wonderful things about BP is they decide early about people that they want to give massive and different experiences to. Part of the game is to put people into things that they know absolutely nothing about.”

In 1979, Olver was dispatched to San Francisco as an executive in BP’s North American pipelines business, which includes the TransAlaska pipeline. A stint at business school in Virginia in 1984 led to BP’s corporate planning department and a role running North Sea pipelines and BP Gas in Europe.

In 1990, he was appointed chief of staff to BP’s chairman and chief executive, Sir Robert Horton. His next big step up the ladder came two years later, when James Ross, who ran BP in America, left to become chief executive of Cable & Wireless. Olver was named chief executive of BP Exploration in the US.

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