Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, the CEO of Volvo, brought together 7 European business leaders on 6 and 7 April 1983 to create an organisation aiming to communicate that Europe needed to modernise its industrial bases.
The initial members were Gyllenhammar, Karl Beurle (Thyssen), Carlo De Benedetti (Olivetti), Curt Nicolin (ASEA), Harry Gray (United Technologies), John Harvey-Jones (ICI), Wolfgang Seelig (Siemens), Umberto Agnelli (Fiat), Peter Baxendell (Shell), Olivier Lecerf (Lafarge Coppée), José Bidegain (Cie de St Gobain), Wisse Dekker (Philips), Antoine Riboud (BSN), Bernard Hanon (Renault), Louis von Planta (Ciba-Geigy) and Helmut Maucher (Nestlé).
During the 1990s, the chairment of ERT were: Wisse Dekker (Netherlands), Jérôme Monod (France) and Helmut Maucher (Switzerland), with Keith Richardson as secretary general.
The ERT published its paper "Actions for Competitiveness through the Knowledge Economy in Europe" in March 2001, calling for national education systems to focus on in-demand skills and for employers to invest in lifelong learning.
This would eventually come into effect in 2011 in the shape of the European Coordinating Body in Maths, Science and Technology Education (ECB), which ran until 2014.
The Brussels Business is a 2013 documentary film by Friedrich Moser and Matthieu Lietaert with the topic on the lack of transparency and the influence of lobbyists on the European Union's decision-making processes.