Gerald Edgar Grimstone was born in August 1949,[2] in Streatham, London, the son of Edgar Wilfred Grimstone (died 1986), of Croydon, and Dorothy Yvonne, née Martin.

[5] He was educated at the independent Whitgift School, Croydon, and Merton College, Oxford, where he received a degree in chemistry.

Grimstone was chairman of Standard Life (now Standard Life Aberdeen) from 2007 till 2019, deputy chairman of Barclays since January 2016, a non-executive director of Deloitte and the lead non-executive director at the Ministry of Defence.

[7][8][9][10][11] Grimstone was knighted in the 2014 Birthday Honours,[12] and received that accolade from the Prince of Wales on 6 February 2015.

[13] On 8 April 2020 he was created Baron Grimstone of Boscobel, of Belgravia in the City of Westminster.