Sir Edwin Nixon ran the British arm of IBM during the computer company’s golden age. He joined in 1955 when IBM was better known for cardboard punch cards than silicon processors. By the time he retired in 1990 Big Blue had been eclipsed by Microsoft and the desktop PC. In between times the company made its name as the company whose products got nobody fired.

Nixon did much to bring American computer power across the Atlantic. He also promulgated new business methods that intrigued Britons in the early 1960s as much as Google’s “Don’t be evil” mantra does today. With Nixon at the helm, IBM (UK) tore down barriers that kept workers and managers apart. Nixon ate in the same canteen as his staff and abandoned such trappings of executive office as a reserved car parking space. He encouraged employees to criticise, and believed that IBM found success because of it.

Management was, and still is, considered by many to be an art that anyone can practise. Nixon helped to dilute that notion, extolling the benefits of strategic thinking, rigorous research and meticulous execution. Today independent consultants are seen as the wise owls of corporate strategy. In the 1960s and 1970s IBM and other firms such as Unilever, Shell and BP showed the way.

Nixon reflected IBM policy by being fiercely protective of staff although loyalty, some argue, became an impediment to progress in the face of stiffening 1980s competition. With the onset of lean times IBM found it difficult to adjust and loath to refresh itself through corporate restructuring.

Away from IBM Nixon was instrumental in the establishment of Silicon Glen, the Scottish centre for computer technology and entrepreneurship modelled on Silicon Valley, California. On retiring from IBM he applied his skills to a trio of UK blue chips. Most notably, Nixon was entrusted with the chairmanship of Amersham International from 1988 to 1996. Amersham, a medical research company, was Margaret Thatcher’s first privatisation and a test-bed for subsequent telecoms, gas and electricity sell-offs. Nixon is credited with injecting commercial vigour into Amersham, an organisation then known better for its scientific than business credentials.

Nixon was appointed managing director of IBM (UK) in 1965 at the relatively tender age of 40. Perhaps as a result, he was willing to nurture other youngish people. At Amersham he presided over the 1989 appointment of Bill Castell, who was then 42, as chief executive. Castell is now chairman of Wellcome Trust and a senior figure at BP.

At Amersham Nixon also worked alongside Sir Tom McKillop, the former chief executive of AstraZeneca, the drugs company that emerged from ICI. McKillop, as well as being a senior director at BP, is chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland and is now drawing on lessons learnt working beside Nixon at Amersham.

Nixon was appointed non-executive director of National Westminster Bank in 1975 and served as deputy chairman from 1987 until 1996. He was a non-executive director of Royal Insurance for eight years from 1980.

Colleagues remember Nixon as an executive who understood that big picture visions had to be complemented by a close attention to detail. While at Amersham, he determinedly suggested that the company adopt a “tripolar” approach of selling in Europe, North America and Asia before globalisation became the stuff of common parlance. He actively sought to give capitalism an acceptable face and extolled the social benefits of business at a time when industry was seen, in government circles and elsewhere, as unsavory. Us-and-them-style industrial relations were a particular bugbear.

Nixon benefited personally from advances in medical science of the sort that he encouraged in office hours. He enjoyed nearly 25 years of life after his first heart bypass operation at the age of 59.

“Eddie” Nixon was born in Leicester in 1921. He attended Alderman Newton’s School, Leicester, and often spoke warmly of the opportunities he was given courtesy of the grammar school system. He read mathematics at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His association with education was life-long: he was made an honorary Fellow of Selwyn in 1983, and occupied the influential role of chairman of the council of the University of Leicester from 1992 to 1998. He was also connected with Manchester Business School; the Oxford Centre for Management Studies (renamed Templeton College in 1983); the Open University and the Civil Service College.

Nixon’s interests were wide. He sat on the advisory council of the New Oxford English Dictionary; he worked with the Prince’s Youth Trust and Business in the Community; and he was president of the National Association for Gifted Children from 1980 to 1991. Recreationally, he enjoyed golf and classical music and was among the first executives to authorise corporate sponsorship of the arts. He was chairman of the board of trustees of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Nixon’s first wife, Joan Hill, died in 1995. He is survived by a daughter and a son, and his second wife, Bridget, whom he married in 1997.

Sir Edwin Nixon, CBE, businessman, was born on June 21, 1925. He died on August 17, 2008, aged 83