Gordon Brunton

For much of the war, he fought in the Burma campaign before joining the British Military Government in Düsseldorf and Hamburg working on the reconstruction of local infrastructure.

Of particular note was during the late 1960s, with Gordon Brunton leading the diversification into the package tour business for Thomson, this was later supported by his friend from the LSE Vladimir Raitz, founder of Horizon Holiday Group.

Brunton believed Thomson had certain advantages in entering the travel market, at a time when tastes were changing for British holidaymakers with shifting aspirations for overseas holidays.

Brunton argued that Thomson held an advantage over their competitors with their printing presses, free access to their media empire with advertising and editorial capacity in their national and regional newspaper network.

In the early 1970s, Brunton instigated ITOL's highly risky and calculated gamble into the North Sea oil venture with the late Dr Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum and J. Paul Getty.

During Gordon Brunton's era at the International Thomson Organisation, the company established a number of community redevelopment and local economic regeneration programs including a model scheme in Neath, South Wales.

Gordon Brunton's reputation of being a safe pair of hands and a skilled negotiator resulted in undertaking a crisis management role at the troubled auction house Sotheby's as Chairman.

During this turbulent period, Brunton made enforced cuts and personnel changes to bring stability to a business which had been judged to have been poorly mismanaged.