[2] Kalms joined Dixons in 1948 at the age of 16 and over the years grew the company from a one-store family business into Europe's leading specialist electrical retailer.

Kalms has written in the press on the subjects of European Monetary Union (EMU), and on Corporate Governance; and a book – A Time to Change – a review of the activities of the United Synagogue (1996).

[6] On 10 July 2024 it was announced that Kalms had ceased to be a member of the House of Lords due to non attendance in the previous parliamentary session.

He received an honorary degree from Buckingham,[2] and Chris Woodhead was the Sir Stanley Kalms Professor of Education.

He received his knighthood in the 1996 New Years Honours[11][12] for his services to the electrical retailing industry and made a life peer as Baron Kalms, of Edgware in the London Borough of Barnet in 2004.