Frank Chapman claims to have been a late-starter in life but he is certainly making up for it now. Born at Customs House near the Royal Victoria Docks, he is an Eastender who is now looking Down Under to pull off a deal that could transform BG into a genuine global player.

At BG, Mr Chapman has become practised at fending off speculation that his company is about to be taken over by his old employer Shell. Yesterday Mr Chapman was discussing the rationale behind BG's £6 billion cash approach for Origin Energy, the vertically integrated Australian power company. BG wants the Australian assets to help to serve the prodigious demand for liquefied natural gas from Asia.

Mr Chapman, the son of a woodwork-loving truck driver, used to take clocks apart as a boy but failed his 11-plus and went to a secondary modern school. There he shone only in woodwork and technical drawing, in which he did well enough to get into technical college and studied for a diploma in engineering. That allowed him to go to Queen Mary College, London, where the late-starter blossomed, gaining a first-class degree.

After university, he worked briefly for BP before moving to Shell, where he managed major projects, working in the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Norway and Sarawak, in Borneo.

He decided that he wanted to run a FTSE 100 company but the route was not always clear. After 18 years with Shell, he left for Kvaerner, the Norwegian oil services company, but it didn't work out.

He joined British Gas in 1996, heading its exploration and production arm, and was there when the company demerged its international business and BG Group was created. The wiry Mr Chapman, who retains traces of an East End accent, became BG's chief executive in 2000.

Since then he has built a business where profits have leapt from £35 million to more than £3 billion a year.

A deal with Origin would not be the company's first strategic acquisition in Australia, where it has admitted it is weak, but it would be its biggest and could provide BG the truly global reach it has yet to secure.

Outside work, Mr Chapman, 54, loves to sail and has roped many of his colleagues into his hobby, even sponsoring contenders in the Global Challenge round-the-world race. He has competed in the Fastnet Race and is a keen coastal fisherman.

He also has two teenagers from his first marriage and two small children from his second marriage to Kari, a Norwegian.