After arguing that the fund needed to increase its client exposure, he was key in creating the independent but still 100% owned by BT organisation in Hermes Pensions Management, for which he served as CEO until 2002.
[3] The eventual 2003 UK Combined Code also brought in his championed recommendations of transparency, professionalism in appointments, accountability and openness.
When asked how he squared these often controversial positions with his Conservative politics, he responded:[2] In the 1970s and 1980s, the issue was whether we were going to have capitalism, now the issue is how we can make it work properly.Ross Goobey was an experienced non-executive director, serving on the boards of Wellcome Trust, a council member for Lloyd's of London, chairman of Invista Real Estate Investment Management (INRE) formerly listed on AIM, London Stock Exchange, and Senior independent director of Gcap Media, and served on the board of Scottish Life and Cheltenham & Gloucester.
[2] A Liveryman of the Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers Company, Ross Goobey was appointed CBE in 2000 for services to pensions.
[2] Having served two terms with HM Treasury, Ross Goobey served on various UK Government panels, including: the Goode Committee on Pensions Law; the Middleton Committee on film industry finance; chairman of the Private Finance Panel from 1996–97 (from which refusing to resign, he was sacked by New Labour chancellor Gordon Brown); chairman of the International Corporate Governance Network from 2002 to 2005.
[2] Having written private client briefs from the start of his career, his thoughts came to public attention when at James Capel he wrote the weekly column, "From Your Side of the Desk".
At the time of his death, he had an unpublished novel set against the backdrop of France's equivalent of the South Sea Bubble, in John Law's Mississippi scandal.