Ron Dennis - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/ron-dennis","20180630103330","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1530354810"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Ron Dennis - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="The most successful team chief in the history of Formula One racing, Ron Dennis led the McLaren Racing team to victory in 17 world championships and 158 Grand Prix competitions, from the time he first assumed leadership of McLaren in 1980 until his retirement in 2017. He vastly expanded the enterprise, founding the McLaren Technology Group of companies. Under his leadership, McLaren Automotive produced the most advanced and highly rated sports cars in the world, including the innovative hybrid ultra-high-performance McLaren P1. McLaren Applied Technologies has offered high-tech solutions to clients in the automotive sector and other industries. The company’s technical assistance helped Team Great Britain to win 15 gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, and it has partnered with GlaxoSmithKline to streamline the trial and production process for new medications. Ron Dennis was named a Commander of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his services to motorsport. His foundation, Dreamchasing, mentors and finances young people around the world to pursue their own dreams."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Ron Dennis - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="The most successful team chief in the history of Formula One racing, Ron Dennis led the McLaren Racing team to victory in 17 world championships and 158 Grand Prix competitions, from the time he first assumed leadership of McLaren in 1980 until his retirement in 2017. He vastly expanded the enterprise, founding the McLaren Technology Group of companies. Under his leadership, McLaren Automotive produced the most advanced and highly rated sports cars in the world, including the innovative hybrid ultra-high-performance McLaren P1. McLaren Applied Technologies has offered high-tech solutions to clients in the automotive sector and other industries. The company’s technical assistance helped Team Great Britain to win 15 gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, and it has partnered with GlaxoSmithKline to streamline the trial and production process for new medications. Ron Dennis was named a Commander of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his services to motorsport. His foundation, Dreamchasing, mentors and finances young people around the world to pursue their own dreams."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.png"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="The most successful team chief in the history of Formula One racing, Ron Dennis led the McLaren Racing team to victory in 17 world championships and 158 Grand Prix competitions, from the time he first assumed leadership of McLaren in 1980 until his retirement in 2017. He vastly expanded the enterprise, founding the McLaren Technology Group of companies. Under his leadership, McLaren Automotive produced the most advanced and highly rated sports cars in the world, including the innovative hybrid ultra-high-performance McLaren P1. McLaren Applied Technologies has offered high-tech solutions to clients in the automotive sector and other industries. The company’s technical assistance helped Team Great Britain to win 15 gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, and it has partnered with GlaxoSmithKline to streamline the trial and production process for new medications. Ron Dennis was named a Commander of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his services to motorsport. His foundation, Dreamchasing, mentors and finances young people around the world to pursue their own dreams."/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Ron Dennis - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.png"/> <script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180630103330\/http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"WebSite","@id":"#website","url":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180630103330\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/","name":"Academy of Achievement","alternateName":"A museum of living history","potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180630103330\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/search\/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}</script> <script 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middle-bar"></div> <div class="icon-bar bottom-bar"></div> </div> <div class="search-toogle icon-icon_search" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#searchModal" data-gtm-category="search" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Header Search Icon"></div> </div> </div> </header> <div class="" role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120-380x152.png [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.png [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.png"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Ron Dennis</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Founder, McLaren Technology Group</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-42382 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-auto-racing-team-principal careers-automotive-executive careers-entrepreneur careers-manufacturer careers-sports-executive"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">People come up to me and say, ‘We’ve been to your facilities. They are mind-blowing. How do you keep these standards? How do you keep this mindset?’ And the answer is: by phenomenal attention to detail, and by sharing and infecting people with your passion for perfection, your desire for perfection.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Formula One Pioneer</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> June 1, 1947 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>Ron Dennis was born and raised in Woking, Surrey, southwest of London. Race cars and motorsport captured his imagination at an early age. As a teenager, he hung around the facilities of Brabham Racing until he was offered a part-time job, making tea and doing other chores while he learned everything he could about building and preparing race cars. He studied motor engineering at Guildford Technical College, and at age 18 was hired as a full-time mechanic by the Cooper Racing Car Company.</p> <figure id="attachment_42475" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42475 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42475 lazyload" alt="" width="1200" height="918" data-sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic.jpg 1200w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic-380x291.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic-760x581.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1966: 19-year-old Ron Dennis, left, a full-time mechanic at Cooper Racing Car Company, with lead racing driver Jochen Rindt, right. Rindt arranged for Dennis to join him when he moved to Brabham Racing for the 1968 season.</figcaption></figure><p>From the beginning, Ron Dennis had his sights set on Formula One, the highest class of single-seat racing. The Formula One circuit consists of a series of Grand Prix races, held in cities around the world, with cars competing on challenging irregular tracks or driving through city streets and country roads. A Formula One team constructs its own vehicles, usually with engines supplied by major manufacturers. Each team typically enters two drivers in a given race. Teams are judged on the number of races won and the number of stages, or “posts,” reached first. At the end of each season, two championship crowns are awarded, one for the season’s best driver, and a constructor’s prize for the team that has built the best vehicle.</p> <figure id="attachment_42476" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42476 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42476 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1493" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040-380x249.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040-760x498.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">July 18, 1970: Australian racing driver Jack Brabham, Formula One world champion in 1959, 1960, and 1966, with his chief mechanic, Ron Dennis, prior to the 1970 Grand Prix of Great Britain in Brands Hatch, England. (© Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>Ron Dennis devoted himself to his work. His dedication paid off when he was invited to travel as part of the Cooper team to the Grand Prix in Mexico City. For the 19-year-old mechanic, it was a great adventure, his first experience traveling outside of England. Although the car he was assigned to work on did not win in Mexico City, another of Cooper’s cars won the race and as a team member, Dennis enjoyed his first tastes of Grand Prix victory.</p> <figure id="attachment_42483" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42483 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42483 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1497" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610-380x250.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610-760x499.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1983: Ron Dennis and driver Niki Lauda debuting McLaren’s new Porsche-built TAG turbo engine at the Dutch Grand Prix. Dennis persuaded the retired Lauda to return to Formula One. (Hoch Zwei/Corbis via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p>When one of Cooper’s star drivers, Jochen Rindt, moved from Cooper to Brabham, he invited the young mechanic to join him. Typically, the race car companies assigned their mechanics to work on a variety of vehicles in the off-season. Dennis agreed to return to his old employer on condition that he be assigned to work exclusively on Formula One cars.</p> <p>The new hire quickly drew the attention of the team’s owner and principal driver, Jack Brabham, and in 1968 Dennis became Jack Brabham’s chief mechanic. Brabham entrusted Dennis with more and more responsibility until he was essentially serving in the role of team manager. When Brabham decided to retire, it occurred to Dennis that, at age 24, he had all the experience he needed to run a team of his own. At the time, it was unheard of for a young mechanic to start a racing team, but Dennis found a few willing investors, and in 1971 founded Rondel Racing in his hometown of Woking. To get his company started, Dennis could not focus solely on Formula One.  He needed to build the business by working first in the lower tiers of motorsport.</p> <figure id="attachment_42518" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42518 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42518 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">March 1986: McLaren driver Alain Prost, team boss Ron Dennis, and McLaren designer John Barnard, at the Grand Prix of Brazil, Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet. In 1980, Dennis recruited Barnard to join McLaren and work on the first carbon fiber composite (CFC) chassis in Formula One, the McLaren MP4. (© Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>Dennis drove himself relentlessly, working days on end, often without sleep. One night, returning home late, he fell asleep at the wheel and collided with a lamppost.  The steering wheel penetrated one lung. His head broke through the windshield and he suffered major lacerations on his face and skull. Fragments of broken glass were lodged in both of his eyes. Surgeons succeeded in saving his sight and restoring his appearance, but a prolonged recuperation forced him to delegate responsibility to other members of his business and master a more sophisticated style of management.</p> <p>By the mid-’70s, Rondel was enjoying considerable success building Formula Two cars. Dennis was poised to build his first Formula One car in 1974 when a key investor, French energy company Motul, withdrew because of a worldwide energy crisis. Dennis was forced to sell his interest in the company as well as his production facilities. At age 27, he was out of work and forced to start over.</p> <figure id="attachment_42485" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42485 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42485 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">May 23, 1993: Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna and McLaren team boss Ron Dennis celebrate victory at the Monaco Grand Prix. Senna, a three-time Formula One world champion, is widely regarded as the greatest racing driver who ever lived. On May 1, 1994, Senna died as a result of his car crashing into a concrete barrier while he was leading the San Marino Grand Prix at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. (Credit: Steve Etherington/EMPICS)</figcaption></figure><p>Racing teams typically depend on the sponsorship of highly visible corporations.  Dennis received an offer from Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, to build Formula Two cars for a pair of drivers from Ecuador. At first, he was reluctant to return to the lower tier of the sport, but he saw that the tobacco giant’s support would enable him to build a new company and eventually return to Formula One. With Marlboro sponsorship, Dennis built Formula Two and Three cars, winning championships in 1979 and 1980. He was now prepared to return to Formula One.</p> <figure id="attachment_42487" style="width: 1619px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42487 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42487 lazyload" alt="" width="1619" height="1116" data-sizes="(max-width: 1619px) 100vw, 1619px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583.jpg 1619w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583-380x262.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583-760x524.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">March 1997: Ron Dennis celebrating with drivers Mika Häkkinen (McLaren), Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), and David Coulthard (McLaren) at the Australian Grand Prix at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park. (Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>With his new company, Project Four, he recruited a maverick designer, John Barnard, to build something unprecedented. Dennis and Barnard learned of the work being done with carbon fiber in rocket engines in the United States. Consulting with an American defense contractor, Dennis and Barnard proposed to build a car with a unified chassis and body made of carbon fiber. This light but durable material, they believed, would make for a uniquely fast and dependable vehicle.</p> <p>Dennis took the project to his patrons at Philip Morris, but the cigarette maker had an exclusive commitment to Team McLaren for their Formula One sponsorship. The McLaren team, once highly successful, was floundering, and Dennis persuaded Philip Morris executives to assist him in acquiring an interest in McLaren himself, so he could produce the car under the existing contract with Philip Morris.</p> <figure id="attachment_42494" style="width: 1316px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42494 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42494 lazyload" alt="" width="1316" height="1946" data-sizes="(max-width: 1316px) 100vw, 1316px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426.jpg 1316w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426-257x380.jpg 257w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426-514x760.jpg 514w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1999: Ron Dennis with his wife, Lisa, and their three children, arriving at West End Lyceum Theatre for the London premiere of Walt Disney’s <em>The Lion King</em>. In 2008, Ron and Lisa Dennis divorced after 22 years of marriage. (Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>In 1980, Dennis acquired equity in a restructured Team McLaren Limited, and the MP4/1 (Marlboro Project Four 1) became a reality. Within a year, Team McLaren was winning races again with Dennis and Barnard’s MP4/1, and other companies were struggling to develop carbon fiber vehicles of their own. By 1982, Dennis and an associate had bought out the other partners and Ron Dennis assumed full control of McLaren. Two Grand Prix victories in 1982 and another in 1983 signaled to the world that the new Team McLaren was headed for greatness. In 1984, Dennis brought <em>Techniques d’Avant Garde</em> (TAG) Group into the partnership, acquiring the group’s Porsche-built turbocharged engines.</p> <figure id="attachment_42599" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42599 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42599 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1487" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1-380x248.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1-760x496.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">May 13, 2004: Her Majesty the Queen, escorted by McLaren CEO and Chairman Ron Dennis, officially opens the McLaren Technology Centre, the new headquarters of the McLaren Group in Woking, Surrey, England. Designed by renowned British architect Lord Norman Foster, the kidney-shaped building serves as the base for the company’s automotive arm, Formula One team, and McLaren Applied Technologies. (Photo credit: Arthur Edwards/AFP/Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>Under Dennis’s leadership, McLaren was now poised to enter a period of dominance in the sport. With the addition of the turbocharged Porsche engines, Dennis’s MP4/2 won 12 out of 16 races in 1984 and won both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships. The drivers Alain Prost and Niki Lauda led the McLaren team, with Lauda winning the Drivers’ Championship in 1984, and Prost taking the crown in both 1985 and 1986. The McLaren vehicles established an unsurpassed reputation for both speed and reliability. Ron Dennis capitalized on the team’s success by diversifying the business. In 1987, he formed McLaren Electronic Systems, now part of McLaren Applied Technologies.</p> <p>The last years of the decade brought changes at McLaren. Niki Lauda retired, Dennis switched engine suppliers from TAG to Honda, and signed the gifted young Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna. McLaren enjoyed its best season yet in 1988, winning 15 out of 16 races and taking both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships, the latter by an unprecedented margin. In 1989, Dennis co-founded McLaren Automotive to design and manufacture the McLaren F1 ultra-high-performance sports car for the luxury consumer market.</p> <figure id="attachment_42493" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42493 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42493 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">September 13, 2007: Ron Dennis after the World Motor Sport Council hearing at the <em>Federation Internationale de l’Automobile</em> in Paris. The World Council found that, as a result of the conduct of McLaren’s chief designer, Mike Coughlan, McLaren did possess confidential Ferrari data that was used in a way that interfered with the world championship. The World Council stripped the team (but not its drivers) of its points – and fined McLaren $100 million. Dennis retains his absolute conviction that the team did not benefit from Coughlan’s actions. (© Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>Friction erupted between McLaren’s two star drivers, Prost and Senna, at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1989. Prost left McLaren the following year, although his acrimonious rivalry with Senna continued. Senna won the Drivers’ Championship for McLaren again in 1990 and 1991, but the following years were difficult as McLaren lost its partnership with Honda, and failed to find a suitable replacement supplier in either Ford or Peugeot.  McLaren would win no more championships for the next seven years. Ayrton Senna left McLaren for rival Williams Racing in 1994, only to suffer a fatal accident in that year’s San Marino Grand Prix.</p> <p>By the mid-’90s, a new deal with engine supplier Mercedes returned McLaren cars to the winner’s circle. In 1995, McLaren won the 24-hour race in Le Mans with new driver Mika Häkkinen at the wheel of the F1 GTR, a racing variant on McLaren Automotive’s high-performance sports car that outperformed the purpose-built racing vehicles of rival teams. In the 1990s, Ron Dennis led McLaren to a new era of dominance, winning both Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships in 1998, and a second trophy for driver Häkkinen in 1999.</p> <figure id="attachment_42490" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42490 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42490 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1623" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942-380x271.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942-760x541.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">May 25, 2008: McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain celebrates with his team principal and career mentor Ron Dennis after a victory in the FIA Formula One Grand Prix de Monaco on the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo. In December 1995, at the age of 10, Hamilton approached Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, “I want to race for you one day … I want to race for McLaren.” (Photo by Paul Gilham/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p>By decade’s end, Ron Dennis had further diversified his business interests, spinning off the in-house catering service to a stand-alone business, Absolute Taste.  With a partner from the TAG Group, he acquired luxury watchmaker Heuer, forming TAG Heuer, although Dennis and his partner sold their interest in the business in 1999.</p> <p>The success Ron Dennis had achieved in business offered him an opportunity to become more involved in philanthropic causes. In 2000, he became a trustee and co-chairman of Tommy’s, a medical research charity investigating the causes of premature birth, stillbirth, and miscarriage. The same year, Queen Elizabeth II named Ron Dennis a Knight Commander of the British Empire for his contributions to British motorsport.</p> <figure id="attachment_42489" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42489 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42489 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">November 17, 2011: British Prime Minister David Cameron talks with Ron Dennis, Executive Chairman of McLaren Automotive, during a visit to the McLaren Technology Centre and McLaren Production Centre in Woking, Southeast England. David Cameron unveiled a one-million-British-pound prize, which will be awarded every two years for “groundbreaking advances in engineering which have led to significant international public benefit.” (Oli Scarff)</figcaption></figure><p>In 2004, Dennis formed McLaren Applied Technologies, absorbing McLaren Electronic Systems and creating a subsidiary within the McLaren Group to further develop the innovations in materials and analytics his workshop had produced, and to find new purposes for them, not only in the automotive industry but in many other areas. McLaren’s expanding operations required a new headquarters, and Ron Dennis resolved to make it an architectural showplace as well. After a false start with the firm of American architect Richard Meier, Ron Dennis hired the firm of Foster and Partners, headed by the distinguished British architect Lord Norman Foster. In 2004, the Queen presided over the official opening of the McLaren Technology Centre, a 500,000-square-meter site in Dennis’s hometown of Woking.</p> <p>The year 2005 was another strong one for McLaren Racing. Although they won the most Grand Prix races of any team that year, they were narrowly beaten for both Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships. At the end of the year, Dennis announced a 500-million-pound sponsorship agreement with mobile communications company Vodafone. The following year, however, was a disappointment, with McLaren failing to win a single race.</p> <figure id="attachment_42497" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42497 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42497 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">December 2014: Ron Dennis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, McLaren, and Yasuhisa Arai, Chief Officer of Motorsport, Honda, as McLaren-Honda announces its new driver line-up for 2015 in Woking, England. (© Getty)</figcaption></figure><p>Dennis continued to develop McLaren’s technology and automotive divisions while expanding his philanthropic activities. In 2007, he founded Dreamchasing, a charitable foundation that provides young people with “funding, guidance, and training to help them fulfill their potential and become inspirational role models for others.” Its ongoing projects include support for Fida International, a humanitarian effort to rehabilitate child soldiers and support war-ravaged communities in eastern and central Africa, and for the Royal National Children’s Foundation, which provides shelter and support for children who have suffered trauma, abuse or neglect.</p> <p>The 2007 season year saw the McLaren team headed for recovery, although rivalry between new drivers caused friction and bad publicity. The year also saw McLaren fined $100 million by FIA, the sport’s governing body, for alleged complicity in the theft of intellectual property from rival Ferrari. Despite these setbacks, Ron Dennis led his team to yet one more victory, with driver Lewis Hamilton winning the 2008 Drivers’ Championship for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team.</p> <figure id="attachment_42499" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42499 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42499 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">July 2, 2017: Ron Dennis with his partner, Carol Weatherall, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. (David M. Benett)</figcaption></figure><p>In 2009, Dennis stepped aside as team leader while retaining his chairmanship of McLaren Group. He increasingly turned his attention to the production of luxury consumer vehicles, launching the MP4-12C high-performance sports car in 2010.  A new manufacturing facility, the McLaren Production Centre, also designed by Foster and Partners, was officially opened by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011. The Production Centre stands side-by-side with McLaren headquarters in Woking. In 2014, McLaren Automotive launched the 650S in two models, Coupe and Spider, and received rave reviews from the automotive press. Dennis also negotiated a new supply agreement with Honda, reuniting one of the most acclaimed partnerships in motorsport. McLaren Automotive continued to create new luxury vehicles, including the 675LT, 570S, 540C, and P1GTR.</p> <p>Despite the great success of the McLaren Group as a whole, a leadership struggle developed within the company. In November 2016, Ron Dennis stepped down as CEO of McLaren. He retained a 25-percent interest in the company until the following year when he sold his remaining interest to the two principal shareholders and resigned his position on the board.</p> <figure id="attachment_40774" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-40774 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-40774 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1824" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">October 18, 2017: Awards Council member Lord Jacob Rothschild presents the Golden Plate Award to Ron Dennis at the American Academy of Achievement’s 52nd annual International Achievement Summit in London, England.</figcaption></figure><p>In his 37 years with the firm, Ron Dennis had built McLaren from a losing racing team into a dominant competitor in Formula One, as well as a diversified technology company and a successful commercial automaker. He continues to pursue new business opportunities and charitable activities. His personal achievement as the most successful team leader in the history of Formula One racing remains unparalleled.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2017 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.automotive-executive">Automotive Executive</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.entrepreneur">Entrepreneur</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.manufacturer">Manufacturer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.sports-executive">Sports Executive</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.auto-racing-team-principal">Auto Racing Team Principal</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> June 1, 1947 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>The most successful team chief in the history of Formula One racing, Ron Dennis led the McLaren Racing team to victory in 17 world championships and 158 Grand Prix competitions, from the time he first assumed leadership of McLaren in 1980 until his retirement in 2017.</p> <p>He vastly expanded the enterprise, founding the McLaren Technology Group of companies. Under his leadership, McLaren Automotive produced the most advanced and highly rated sports cars in the world, including the innovative hybrid ultra-high-performance McLaren P1. McLaren Applied Technologies has offered high-tech solutions to clients in the automotive sector and other industries. The company’s technical assistance helped Team Great Britain to win 15 gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, and it has partnered with GlaxoSmithKline to streamline the trial and production process for new medications.</p> <p>Ron Dennis was named a Commander of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his services to motorsport. His foundation, Dreamchasing, mentors and finances young people around the world to pursue their own dreams.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dh2iQSU9DJE?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_30_38_07.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_30_38_07.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Formula One Pioneer</h2> <div class="sans-2">London, England</div> <div class="sans-2">October 19, 2017</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You were a teenager when you started working at Brabham Racing, running errands and making tea and so forth. By your early 20s you were a top mechanic at Cooper Racing Car Company, and a few years after that, you were starting your own company. How did that come about?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/6mewWuYaIjc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.01_38_06_03.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.01_38_06_03.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Ron Dennis: One of the Cooper drivers was quite a well-known driver, subsequently one of the few drivers to posthumously win the world championship, a driver called Jochen Rindt. And he moved teams, just as sporting superstars move from one team to another, from Cooper’s to Brabham’s, my old tea-making stomping ground. And he approached me and said, would I go with him? The world championship was very seasonal at that time. Most of the Grand Prix teams supplemented their income by manufacturing cars for the lower categories of racing, and getting out of that manufacturing for other people as part of the company into Formula One was extremely difficult. So knowing that this was the same sort of work practice at Brabham, and effectively most of the Grand Prix mechanics had to go back into the production, I actually stipulated that if I went to Brabham’s, it was on the basis that I wouldn’t go into the production facilities. I would be solely and exclusively focused on Formula One. And to actually give me something to do, they put me on the R&D program and the car development. And I formed a very close relationship then with the part owner and principal driver, which was Jack Brabham. By the time we got to the beginning of the season, he had persuaded me to work on his car as opposed to Rindt’s car, which somehow they smoothed over with Rindt. But that started a long relationship where ultimately I emerged into more of a team manager.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>Whilst there are comparable titles in motor racing now, the actual function of the job was completely different.  The chief mechanic effectively was responsible for virtually everything, other than the money and handling the drivers. So a team manager would sort of turn up five minutes before practice and leave half an hour after practice.  Probably not quite accurate, but basically there was a come-and-go, and the chief mechanic was really responsible for everything, save the money and save the drivers.</p> <p>So towards the end of the season, Brabham had decided to retire. I didn’t really want to work for any other driver and I had a sense of who was actually going to join the team and drive for the team. And something relatively fortuitous occurred. Brabham was very keen to go back to England immediately after the race and said, “Well, I am going to go straight off to the race. I want you to go to the race official’s office the next day, pick up the check, go to the bank, cash the check, take the money to Mexico City and deposit it in the safe.” And basically, “I’ll see you, X, Y, Zed days in Mexico City.”</p> <figure id="attachment_42561" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42561 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42561 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1620" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271-380x270.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271-760x540.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1968: A 21-year-old Ron Dennis oversees the scrutineering and weighing of the double high winged #3 Brabham Racing Organisation Brabham BT26 Repco V8 of Jack Brabham during practice for the United States Grand Prix at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, United States. (Photo by Grand Prix Photo/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p>Now one of the few perks of that particular era was that the American Grand Prix was followed by the Mexican Grand Prix. And the cars were not flown from Watkins Glen to Mexico City; they were put onto trailers and driven, which took some time. So the moment that the cars had left, everybody jumped on the plane to Mexico City and then bought a small, short ticket to Acapulco.  Acapulco was just mind-blowing in those early days. It was sort of a supercharged version of Rio. It was full of fun, full of risqué entertainment — it was just amazing.  So I performed all my duties and deposited the briefcase in the safe in Mexico City and off I went to Acapulco.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/j9jbzQqBmKY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.01_29_16_20.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.01_29_16_20.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was lying by the swimming pool, musing over, “What am I going to do?” etc., etc. So I thought, “You know, I’ve run the team. The drivers came and went. I collected the money. Why don’t I do my own team? Because if you have a good team, the drivers want to drive for you.” Now, how naïve was that? The little thing of capital didn’t exist. So with not so many savings, and with a lot of help from other people, I started my own team in one of the lower categories. Completely unheard of! This became the norm. In a few years after, most small teams were started by young mechanics or engineers that had seen what I could do and how I had basically made what appeared to be impossible possible.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/T3f3SCwhAPc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_35_03_27.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_35_03_27.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was in my 20s — mid-20s — and the driver for the following season following Brabham’s retirement was Graham Hill, someone who had won world championships. A little immature, but competent, obviously. And I was building, effectively, the cars for the next season in the production workshop. He came in and said, “What are you doing in here?” I said, “I’m building some Formula Two cars, so I’m not on the Formula One team, I have decided to go on my own.” He said, “Well, nobody told me. I thought you were going to be chief mechanic.” I said, “No, Graham. I am going to start my own team.” There was an initial look of, “It’s not how I expected it to be,” and then he said, “Who is driving them?” I said, “Well, I’ve got two young guys that are paying.” He said, “Would you like me to drive one of the cars?” So I said, “How can I pay you?” He said, “We’ll negotiate the start money together. We’ll play good guy/bad guy. And as and when we get enough money that makes sense for me to race, we’ll go 50-50. “ And off we went. He drove the whole season. And actually, we were second in the first race, and we actually won the second race.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>And the standards — not just my standards, but in fact, they were Formula One standards, perhaps enhanced by my own standards — were so much higher than anyone else in that category that the team stood out. A lot of the detail spent the whole winter preparing and didn’t have that success.</p> <p>And coming from a group of mechanics that had basically formed themselves into a team, it started to really surprise people, and then the momentum started to get into it and I started to grow so fast. At one point I had, I don’t know, one, two, three, four teams in different categories, racing different types of car, different mechanics, going in different directions, growing my workshops and everything.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/pDxGExX529c?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_17_56_15.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_17_56_15.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>At some point in the process, I started to count up, you know, what are my assets, started thinking materially, because obviously the opposite of a profit is a loss, and I didn’t want to catch a cold. Then there was an oil crisis, and my principal sponsor was a French oil company that made one of the first synthetic oils, a company called Motul. They just called me up, and they said, “The spot price has just gone through the floor…” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I mean, oh my God! I could just… five minutes of prepping me for the inevitable. “And therefore we have decided to stop, and we won’t be fulfilling our contractual payments because we can’t.” And that pretty much brought me to my knees. It was hard, but I went into family-and-friends mode. Managed to survive the year. So had an elegant end, because my debt was greater than my assets, so I was technically insolvent. But I had completely underestimated the asset of my factory. And lo and behold, who should walk into my life again was Graham Hill, who said, “I have decided to start my own Formula One team, and it’s very late and I need an instant facility. Will you sell me your facilities?” And whatever the number was, it was multiples more than I expected, and I was able to pay off everybody and have a relatively nominal sum of money left. But it was enough that I maintained my dignity and I went home feeling pretty sad for myself.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/rbgouIcqFXU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_12_17_02.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_12_17_02.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>One particular night, when most of the things had been going wrong, I thought, “This is it.” You know, as a young person, you think you’ve made it. And then, equally fortuitously, someone who had worked for me in a marketing capacity, who had done a presentation with me to Philip Morris —they didn’t buy the presentation, but they actually took my marketing guy and he had risen in stature through Philip Morris. He reached out and said, “I’ve got a bit of a challenge. I think you can help.” So I said, “What is it?” He said, “We have two drivers, and we’re trying to ingratiate ourselves to the country from where they originate.” So this is sounding a little strange, and he said, “Yes, and they’re not bad drivers. They came fourth in Le Mans in a Porsche…” And I thought fourth in Le Mans in a Porsche is like a “so what” sort of thing.</p> <p>I said, “Where are they from?” He said, “Ecuador.” I thought, here I am — world champions — and then these two individuals come out of the woodwork. And I said, “No, I’m not interested.” He said, “Think about it.” I said, “No, no, no, no. No, I can’t go backwards.” “You’re not going backwards. You do everything and we’ll just pay.” So I said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” “Well, think about it.” So two days went past, he phoned up and he’s like, “Look, Ron. I really have to find a solution.” So I just thought of a number and multiplied it by six, which was just an inconceivable amount of money, and I just sort of said, “Okay, I’ll do it for this.” He didn’t even phone me back; he immediately said yes. Oh, goodness. But of course, it then gave me a significant amount of money to start again. So I said, “One year of pain to put myself in a position to grow a business again.” And really, that’s how it unfolded.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_42566" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42566 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-42566 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1543" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986-380x257.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986-760x514.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">June 24, 1990: Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna (1960-1994, center) and his Austrian teammate Gerhard Berger (right) with the rest of the McLaren team at the Mexican Grand Prix at the Mexico City circuit. (Sutton/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>When you developed the first racing car made of carbon fiber, you approached Formula One sponsor Philip Morris with this idea, but they already had a deal with McLaren Automotive.  Then you ended up acquiring McLaren.  How did that happen? </strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/s7K112lWCuM?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_08_08_06.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_08_08_06.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Ron Dennis: I went to them and I said, “You know, McLaren is not doing very well, and I have this revolutionary car. I am prepared to show it to you, but you have to be — you are in McLaren if I show it to you.” So I had a senior manager called Dave Zelkovitz at the time, and he was a little bit geeky but really into motor racing. When we showed him the car, it was clear that he understood how this car could be revolutionary. So we prepped a presentation to the Philip Morris board and waited a couple of days. “We’re sorry, we can’t go ahead because effectively we just have too much money invested in McLaren as a brand and we have to continue, but we really think your car is amazing.” Okay, how do I go about this? So a couple of days went past and I phoned him and said, “What about if I buy McLaren?” So this is —how would you say? — it was like a local pharmacy thinking about buying Boots Evergreen (Walgreens). Is that what it’s called? No way this is, you know… And they said, “Well, how would you like to go about that?” And I said, “Very easy, but you have to help.” So they said, “How do we help?” I said, “It’s simple. You tell them if they don’t sell me 50 percent of the company, you won’t sponsor them.” And so it was a little bit crude to say that — it was more elegant — but that was the message.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>So they thought, “What does this young guy know?” and, “He’s got the car and everything, and we’ll have 50 percent and we’ll be able to maneuver him out of the situation.” But I then came up with another idea, which was, “We really want the most dynamic, forward-thinking racing team and you’ve got all sorts of things that you say have value.“ I thought, “I don’t need any of those things, so why don’t we have a new factory, and I’ll contribute my car and you can only contribute the things that are going to make this team succeed.” So the car — our car — was late, so we said, “Okay, I’ll lease your old cars for two races. How much is this?” That went in the pot. “Then we’ll have all your engines. I’ll buy those, or the new company will buy them,” etc., etc. And I was extremely strong on not wanting anything but the very essence of what we needed to create a new team.</p> <figure id="attachment_40748" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-40748 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-40748 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="2280" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533.jpg 2280w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20180630103330im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2017: Ron Dennis addresses Academy delegates and members during a symposium at Claridge’s Hotel in London.</figcaption></figure><p>There was even enough time to make new transporters for the cars, etc., etc. And of course, the value of their assets versus my assets was not hugely different, and I just had enough money to cover the difference. And that formed what was then a rebranded company, from McLaren to McLaren International, which had a different shareholder structure. We said we would evaluate where we were after three years and then decide what to do, but it never got that far.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/uOoSvirZl4w?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_34_56_14.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_34_56_14.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Two years into the program, Teddy Mayer —who was the principal behind the other 50 percent — and I both had “clean desk” policies. We never went home with anything left on the desk. I came in on Monday morning and there’s a single envelope with “Ron” written on it, you know. And when I opened it, he said, “This isn’t working for me. We need to talk.” That was from Teddy Mayer. So I walked into his office and I said, “Teddy, got your note.” I said, “I don’t really have a problem. I think we’re doing great. I’ve attracted some great sponsors on top of Philip Morris.” The company was fiscally very strong, started to get results. But he was concerned that I was taking too much risk all the time. The risk at that moment was me pushing to commission Porsche to make a new turbo engine for us, and he didn’t see how we could afford it. So it’s a moment of entrepreneurial — I would say — brilliance. I said, “Okay.” He said, “What do you mean, ‘Okay’?” I said, “I think one of us has to buy the other out, but you’ve started this process, so you determine the number and I’ll decide whether to buy or sell.” And it put him in such a quandary. You can imagine —if it was too cheap, I would buy; if it was too expensive, I wouldn’t buy.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>But he had forgotten one thing, which was my credibility was very high at Philip Morris, and I think I had been the architect of the rebirth of McLaren. And I sat, and I thought, “My goodness, it doesn’t really matter what number he comes up with. I don’t have it.” So as I mentioned earlier, I had brought in some supplementary sponsors. So the overall budget was, let’s say, three-quarters Philip Morris, one-quarter other sponsors that I had brought into the team. So I came up with another entrepreneurial solution.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/wYJkB8i1BMY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_35_17_13.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_35_17_13.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I went to Philip Morris and I said, “Look, perhaps you are not really surprised to know that we are in a bit of a deadlock in the company, and I don’t really know who you want to run the company in the future, but it’s going to be Teddy or it’s going to be me. If it’s Teddy, I have to sell.” “Oh no, no, no! We definitely want you. You’re the architect of the current situation. We believe in you.” So I said, “Well, I need some help.” So they said, “How can we help?” I said, “Here’s all the contracts. When we started this contractual arrangement, my budget was completely covered by your contract, and I have now developed 25 percent more income. I want you to forward-pay me that 25 percent out of your contract in one lump sum, but I want you to do it…” — this might not be the day — “I want you to do it on the 23rd of June. The 23rd of June, I have to have the money, and I need to know categorically that I’m going to get the money.” And we discussed the mechanism. They came back and they said, “Okay, we’ll do it.” They said, “Are you sure you’re going to have enough money?” I said, “A hundred percent I will be able to continue, but I need this acceleration of payment.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20180630103330if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/t1NTteViYTw?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_45_23_00.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dennis-Ron-2017-MasterEdit.00_45_23_00.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>So then I went to my bank. I can’t remember what the numbers were, but it was a lot of money, and I said, there’s a banker — who was still the traditional type of bank manager — his name was Mr. Hermson. You know, up until that moment, if I’d had a dog, I would have called it Hermson, and I would have kicked it quite frequently because Mr. Hermson was never very user-friendly. I sat in front of him and I said, “Mr. Hermson, I would like to borrow some money.” He said, “How much do you want to borrow?” I said — whatever the number was — “1.5 million pounds.” So he looked pretty emotionless. I said, “But before you answer, I want to borrow it for 24 hours, and I will give you a guarantee that you will be paid 24 hours after.” So I set the whole deal up. And for tax reasons, the deal was executed in Estoril, Portugal. It was complicated because of all the history of companies and this and that and the other. So there was a table for the documents, and all I could see in Teddy’s face was, he wanted to see his name was on the check. And I had already preempted that, so all the documents got signed. Two lawyers sort of met and said, “Okay, all the documents. Okay, payment.” Boom. And then he had a bank check, just a guaranteed check, you know, cashier’s check, as it were. I could see the disappointment in his eyes because maybe he had even thought at that stage — and I knew he thought how I’d raised the money, but I hadn’t raised it at all that way. And that stayed a deep secret with me. I mean this is the first time I’ve ever really spoken about it. This was 1982, 30-odd years ago. Well, it was very different then. But it was, again, everybody really won. He had a payment that was beyond his wildest hopes. I owned, briefly, 100 percent of the company, because I quickly sold some shares to refinance my life. And that was really the biggest breakthrough. In 1982, I emerged in relatively complete control of the company. I had partners, but they were very silent partners.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How did your passion for car racing begin?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: My passion and enthusiasm for car racing was ignited by visiting at a racing event on, of all days, Boxing Day. Boxing Day was a sports day traditionally in England and that means it’s an uncharacteristically — it doesn’t happen now — but there was an event in a circuit called Brands Hatch in Kent that I went to with my brother at a very early age. I was certainly in the early teens. And of course, the noise, the smell, it sort of triggered the adrenaline rush. I sort of hankered after getting involved in the sport, but of course, it was a little bit like going up a flight of stairs and then suddenly deciding you wanted to climb Everest. It was for me incomprehensible that I would find a way into motorsport — be it ultimately into Formula One, at a relatively young age.</p> <p><strong>As a child, were you interested in mechanical toys? </strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: I was forever taking things apart and not always being able to put them back together again — all of the normal frustrations. But I was fascinated by how things work. People now ask me what cars do I own and do I like cars and things. I see the surprise on their face when I actually say, “Well, I actually don’t like cars.” And they go into shock. And they say, “You’re joking,” and I say, “No, I like making things and I am extremely competitive.” And therefore motor racing provided the ability to make things and very advanced cars that had to be compliant to complex regulations. And then I loved the sport of racing and the entrepreneurial aspects of motor racing, because of course, if you’re in a business that constantly loses money then you’re not going to survive. So it was pretty challenging to make money in a world-class sport. Very few people do it, even in the sport, let alone in other sports.</p> <p><strong>Going back to the beginning, we gather you spent some time at Brabham’s workshop? </strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: A school-holidays sort of thing, you know, trying to peek through the windows and the doors and then generally getting in the way. They probably found it easier to give me something to do rather than constantly asking me to get out of the way. So all of the normal things that you would expect a young chap to do: make tea, clean things, generally be a bit of a dogsbody. But again, it was just being close to Grand Prix cars. And at that time, there were only two races televised, one being the British Grand Prix and the other, strangely enough, being the American Grand Prix.</p> <p>I think televised sport, even in Europe in that early period, was unusual. We only had two television channels when I was growing up. Commercial television hadn’t really hit the UK. So it took some time before there was the airtime for sport. But America was more progressive and more channels, so obviously, televising the American Grand Prix was something that they did. And then of course, then they could sell back into the European markets. I think the next on the calendar was Monte Carlo, and then it slowly built from there to being very much a revenue-generating part of Grand Prix racing.</p> <p><strong>We’ve read that a pair of mechanics at Brabham’s workshop had an influence on you, Tim Wall and Roger Billington.</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Indeed. These two individuals, both from Australia, were quite meticulous in how they went about preparing the cars. I learnt from them, and other individuals who were participating in motorsport, really the difference between good and great. Great, to me, linked into perfection, and of course there is no such thing as perfection. But if you’re a sort of obsessive-compulsive, as I am — which I’d like to feel manifests itself in attention to detail — you just absolutely become a sponge to people who can actually show you a better way to do something. So I tried to build my career on perfection. And inevitably, as you try and absorb knowledge, that desire and thirst normally means that it actually takes every conscious minute of your day. So you become extremely focused, extremely dedicated. And to be focused and dedicated, you have to be full of passion. So my passion for everything that I was involved in was extreme. There was no room for girlfriends in my life until my early 20s. There was no opportunity to spend money. Actually, I saved everything I made, primarily because I didn’t socialize because I was always at work. And it just gave me not only a strong work ethic, but it was a work ethic that was recognized by people that appreciated what I was trying to do. And that really accelerated me at a very early age, even to the higher echelons of motor racing.</p> <p><strong>Did they also teach you mechanics? </strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Well, in the early days I was at technical college. Most of our technical colleges now have become universities, but they had sort of vocational courses that gave you qualifications. So there was a process by which you, if you pursued it through to the end, you had effectively what was called a higher national diploma in a specific discipline. Mine was automotive technology. And needless to say, to be great and to emerge with a good qualification required a level of commitment that I just didn’t have the time for.</p> <p>And then in 1966 my life dramatically changed when the enthusiasm and commitment and passion was recognized by the team manager of the company — which was not Brabham at that time, it was Cooper’s — that I had subsequently started to work for. And he very amusingly did something which I will never forget. The company was probably approximately about 100 people, and a Grand Prix team was six to eight people. And it was a little like football; they posted who were the players for the event; in this instance, who were the team members. And so the first I knew was, there was a bulletin on the company notice board saying, this is the team for the forthcoming Mexico City race — Mexican Grand Prix — and my name was on it.</p> <p>It was on headed paper and I didn’t even think for one minute that someone was playing a practical joke, because there was no sophistication in photocopying machines. Today you could have easily spoofed someone into believing that it was, you know, a rather poor taste joke. But it was real. And I think there was a silence over quite a large part of the company that I, at a relatively young age — I think I was 19 at the time, it was 1966 — was going to the Mexican Grand Prix.</p> <p>At that point of my life, my parents had put a roof over my head and had fed me, but they weren’t wealthy —a middle-class family, but they weren’t in a position to further my career. They were in a position to feed me and clothe me. Part of my salary went back into the household, the normal way things were in that period. And of course, not only did I not have time to go on holiday, but holidays were just — forget it, I never had holidays. and therefore I had never even thought about leaving the country. I don’t think I had even been further than the Isle of Wight, and then suddenly I’m on a 707 — primarily going to New York because it didn’t have the range to go to Mexico City — via New York. I can still remember the emotion of being sat in a jet bound to New York, on the way to Mexico City. It was quite a surreal experience. And of course, the determination that I had to try and excel at the event was extreme. And actually, whilst the car that I was preparing didn’t do very well — it was driven by a local hero — one of their other cars won the Grand Prix. So it was particularly satisfying that there I was at a Grand Prix which the team actually won.</p> <p><strong>You survived an accident that you have sometimes referred to as leading to a lesson in management. Could you tell us about that?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: I was a workaholic. And you weren’t really considered a motor racing person if you didn’t have the ability to work straight through one night and work the next day. Two days with no sleep — 48 hours with no sleep — was just called an all-nighter. People would almost wear all-nighters like a medal.</p> <p><strong>Was that because of the deadline pressures?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Yes, because work expands to fit the time available, but if the time available isn’t enough for the work, you’ve got to find more time, then play, then go to bed. I hadn’t been to sleep for some time and I fell asleep. I never had anything to spend money on, but one thing I did always — I had great cars. In my 20s I had an E-Type Jaguar in which I was constantly being stopped by the police because the police couldn’t accept that someone so young could have <em>any</em> type of Jaguar. But nevertheless, I did. And I stopped at some traffic lights and went to sleep. And the person beeped behind me, reputedly, and I drove diagonally straight into a lamppost. And in those days, no seat belts.</p> <p><strong>You were asleep as you were driving?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Yes. The steering wheel penetrated one of my lungs, but more importantly, this was in the early days of what was then called laminated screens. It wasn’t a triplex screen that fractionalized into lots of components, and I went through the windscreen and cut a large section of my head open, my whole forehead and everything. A phenomenal amount of cuts on my face, but more importantly, I got glass in both of my eyes. Again, I was very fortunate. I was near a hospital that had some of the best eye surgeons and also plastic surgeons. It was actually there to accommodate serious operations.</p> <p>It was a sort of centralized, specialized hospital that people weren’t taken to normally in an A&E (accident and emergency) condition. I was very lucky. I had two things: The eye surgeon was amazing and the plastic surgeon did a pretty good job. When I came to, I was lying flat on the bed and the nurses came and the doctor came very quick and they said, “Look, you’ve suffered severe damage to your eyes and you may not know that anything you do — move an arm, move a leg — it puts pressure on your eyes, so you have to lie very still. And this is going to take time.” So I said, “How long?” And they said, “We don’t want to take the bandages off for several days. We’re not too sure when. We want to see how everything else is, so lie very still.”</p> <p>There was someone in the next bed who had a condition, and as a result of his condition, he had had surgery. And he too was lying very still. And X days into the experience — with my sisters, my mother, everybody coming and being pretty upset; I’d met a girl in France and she had come back to England, so this was not without — that moment of time, it was not without its complications. And when they unwrapped the bandages of this person next to me, the operation had been unsuccessful. I had the stress of him then lying in bed and you could hear him crying. I never met him. He had left before I had my own bandages removed.</p> <p>My eyesight was pretty good, but I was still covered in lacerations, to the extent that when I went to my local bar on the first day of coming out of hospital, a barmaid fainted because I obviously was looking pretty cut up. Anyway, things healed over time, but because of the eye operation, they just said, “You can’t physically work for three months. You have to take three months off.”</p> <p>So I went out and hired a couple of guys. I was doing everything with my own first team. And I hired people and then suddenly realized that the productivity was much higher if I was delegating responsibility. So that accident pushed me into management by necessity. It was sort of life-changing in many ways. In certain circumstances, I still feel pain from where the wood-rimmed steering wheel penetrated my lung. I can still occasionally feel it. But by and large — and of course, you suddenly realize that you’re not so immortal as you think you are as a young person. I am now slightly over 70. I’ve never broken a bone in my body, and I’ve never had any really serious illness. And again, back to America, I go to the Mayo Clinic every two years for my 5,000-mile service. It’s something I really believe in. I am a great believer in looking after yourself, but not just physically working out, but really understanding your physiology and the risks and how you minimize the risks.</p> <p>So right now I’m working on my 20-year plan, with no certainty that it will be 20 years. But I think that if you have a 20-year plan, you can sort of get over the emotion that I experience far too frequently, which is, you get up in the morning and have a shower; you stand in front of the mirror; you close your eyes; you feel 35, 40. You open your eyes, and reality hits you straight there. You know, the mind is still full of ambition, but the body is not actually following on. If you want to get the best out of it, you’ve got to look after it, so that is what I try desperately to do.</p> <p><strong>You were still in your 20s when you lost your first business, as you said. How did you recover from that setback and start over?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: At the point at which I closed the previous organization, I had really just said it to all the people: “I’m stopping.” So as elegantly as possible, I was on my own. So I had a completely clean piece of paper, which is always very scary when you have infinite choice. A quantity of money that I knew was going to be there at the end of the year, so I started to plan and managed to get everything back on track. So from there, you know, I started to look at Formula One. There was a particular project that BMW had initiated. They came to me in desperation. They were keen to accelerate a program that had fallen behind, and I was able to negotiate a really great contract with them, and it gave me enough money to build a Formula One car. And I needed to find someone to design it.</p> <p>There was a young English designer who had previously worked at McLaren and Lola; they are two British racing car companies. He had been headhunted by an American company called Chaparral. So he had designed this Indianapolis car. One of the things about this individual, John Barnard, was that he was notorious for seeking perfection, which inevitably meant programs were late. So the first car went to the Indianapolis tests and he stayed behind to finish the second car, spare parts, etc.</p> <p>The car was very successful in testing. But by the time he arrived in America — and not having been there to be interviewed or to be correctly positioned as being effectively responsible for this car’s design — those people who had financed it had, I think, got a little bit over their skis and were claiming a greater involvement in the design than was true. So this really angered John Barnard. He was pretty upset and quickly returned to England after the Indianapolis race, having resigned because of this lack of appreciation and the fact that he designed such a successful car.</p> <p>He didn’t live far from me, and I find him, and I said, “I wonder, would you have some time to meet me?” He said yes, so I went to his home. And to this day I will remember when he opened the door. I knocked on the door; there was a delay. And he eventually came to the door and he was in carpet slippers and had an electric drill in his hand and said, “Come in.” He looked a bit agitated. And I said, “Everything okay, John?” I didn’t know him very well. He said, “I’ve just been putting up a kitchen. I drilled a hole through one of the cupboards and now there’s a hole on the finished surface.”</p> <p>I looked and I thought, “Oh, my goodness, I would be irritated.” So I said, “Oh, John, it doesn’t matter. You can get these little plastic things. You put it in, and in a couple of days you won’t even notice it.” He said, “I’m not going to do that. I’m going to leave the hole exposed so that it reminds me on a daily basis that I made a mistake.” And I thought, “This guy (a) is going to be difficult and (b) he’s got the same attention to detail as I have.” And then we forged a partnership. He came to the company. I built a drawing office for him and started to fund the program.</p> <p>Of course, until you make anything, it is really the designer’s time. It is paper, it is brain power, etc., etc. And there were several historic moments in that early Formula One program that were specific. There were two technologies that we initiated. One was the ability to simulate a car moving over the road surface, which was called a moving road. And John teamed with one of the universities and it was a sort of breakthrough at being able to develop the aerodynamics of a racing car. Because the car was, effectively, not static in the wind tunnel. The wind tunnel floor was moving under it the same as the wind speed, so it meant that the accuracy of the aerodynamic development was much greater.</p> <p>But the other breakthrough was the program that I touched on with BMW. The rear aerofoil on the car was made from carbon fiber, a relatively simple profile, and really it wasn’t complex in shape. He was looking at this rear aerofoil. It was really the embryonic component made from carbon fiber. And he was saying, “With all the forces that we’re developing aerodynamically, we need a really stiff primary structure that is called the motorcar.” He said, “I think we could make one out of this material.” So I said okay.</p> <p>It’s pretty difficult. But of course, within two, three weeks we both become pretty up to speed with composites. And it was just depressing. Everywhere we went we struggled to find the maturity of a manufacturing process to be able to make a motorcar out of this material. We went to Westland’s, who were manufacturing helicopter rotor blades. We went to British Aerospace, as they were known then, and virtually everything made from composite was just playing to its weight as opposed to playing to its strength. It was used to drop the weight out of cowlings and nonstructural components. Again, the technology wasn’t very mature.</p> <p>So we were close to giving up. And then an American that John knew gave him a ring, and he said, “I used to work for this company in America. They make rocket engines, and they were starting to look at composites for solid propellant rockets. It was called Hercules, and they are in Salt Lake City.” So I was on the phone in a millisecond. By this time, we had a model of the car, a big model. It was like three feet long, four feet long maybe. So this model was boxed up, checked in as hand luggage. We arrived in Salt Lake City and we went to Hercules.</p> <p>Here was I expecting to drive up to a sort of NASA-like environment, and all I was looking at is all these small buildings dotted around what was the salt flats, or a very barren area. It was distinctly unimpressive, but nevertheless, it was extremely difficult to get through the security. So two things occurred. First of all, a lot of their facilities were subterranean, and secondly, they quickly pointed out that if anything went wrong in any of their facilities, it was going to be one almighty explosion and therefore most of their facilities were spread relatively large distances between each other. And it was quite strange because it had a little bit of a James Bond-y feel to it, you know — subterranean, immaculately clean, because that was a requirement of working in composites.</p> <p>And very quickly we hit a brick wall. One of the problems we’ve got is all their contracts are military and the space program. And even that, they were vague about. It wasn’t too difficult to work out when you’re seeing missiles all over the place in part form. So I said, “You’re very secret.” They said, “Yeah, we’re extremely secret.” And I said, “Don’t you find that frustrating, that you can’t tell the world how wonderful you are as a company and how advanced you are in material sciences?” And they said, “It is a bit frustrating.” So I said, “Well, why don’t you do this Formula One car, and then you’ll have something that you can promote. You can come to the Grand Prix with your customers, and you won’t be breaching any of the confidentiality clauses or secrecy clauses that relate to your contracts. You’ll be able to have a profile.” And the key engineers have egos like you can’t believe. A lot of self-belief. They don’t often get the spotlight on them. You could see them mentally punching the air, and then they helped coerce the management and off we went.</p> <p>So the first structure, the first carbon fiber car that ever went into Formula One was a McLaren — it was, in fact, not a McLaren — it was my company, which was then called Project Four. I never gave names to the companies; I just gave them designations in order to give the accolade of success to the sponsors. So my company was Project One, Project Two, Project Three, etc., and that one was Project Four. So we’re trying to build this car — one of the most expensive cars ever made, and being made by someone that didn’t have much money.</p> <p><strong>You’ve received a lot of praise and recognition for your work at McLaren, but there’s also been some criticism, hasn’t there?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Then the thing that happens always in motor racing, when you start winning, your power base starts to increase. There was no question that I was an incredible thorn in lots of people’s sides. I rocked the establishment in many, many ways. And from occasionally feeling the crosshairs of the competition, you know: “How do we shoot this guy? How do we basically bring him down?” as it were, because the media puts you on the pedestal, and your competition is constantly trying to take you off the pedestal. And if you wobble, then the media and the competition is sort of keen to jump all over you. I was dodging and ducking and, let’s say, the crosshairs didn’t fall that frequently. But the more you win, the more that people come along and say, “You’re destroying the sport!” Actually one day I received a phone call from the president of Philip Morris, Aleardo Buzzi, of Europe. And he says, “Ron” — he was my principal sponsor — “you’re winning too many races” — they were sponsoring Ferrari — “and I need you to think about the situation because it’s really becoming impossible and you’re ruining the sport.”</p> <p>I’ve been extremely polite. And he says, “Ron, will you consider what I say?” And I said, “Absolutely, Aleardo. You know how much respect I have for your opinion and I will give it deep consideration and you must give me some time.” “Of course Ron, take as long as you want.” So I put the phone down and I thought for a few seconds, and I said, “You must be joking, but I’ll think about it for five or six years.” And of course, inevitably, as in any winning streak or period of success in any team, in any sport, things happen. Your vision isn’t there for that particular swerve and you fall in a hole.</p> <p><strong>You expanded and diversified the business enormously. Why do you think you were able to do that?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: The thing that I feel I brought to McLaren and the growth of McLaren was my absolute aversion to debt. I hated debt. I didn’t even like having overdraft. And my various CFOs — my first CFO, he was debt-averse too. That was easy, but then at some point, as he retired, I took another CFO. This CFO was more modern in his thinking, and was constantly arguing: “Debt is good, as long as it’s the right amount of debt.” So I would always argue endlessly about how much debt we had. For years he never won the argument because we always had such a strong bank balance. Then I realized the thing to do was separate off that bank balance and use it for diversification, and to let the Grand Prix team carry enough debt that it was always seen as only just making a profit.</p> <p>Of course, the wisdom for me was every year you posted accounts if you were a Grand Prix team, and you posted accounts with lots of profit. All your sponsors would immediately have an appetite for pushing down the price. So with careful planning, what I built was a fund which was initially designed for growth and diversification, and then I came up with the idea of buying a building, a really prestigious headquarters. And the headquarters for me was — I explained it to my shareholders, I said, “Don’t look at this as a headquarters. Look at this as our advertising budget. As people come to our headquarters and they see standards that I think I can impose onto our organization, they will realize that we’re going to have a cutting-edge approach to everything we do.”</p> <p>So they said, “What’s it going to look like?” So I thought for a while and I said, “I can’t tell you.” “You can’t tell us?” “No. But I can put a thought into your mind which will help you.” So they said, “What is it?” I said, “It’s called mental aftertaste.” So they look at me — I only invented the expression a few seconds before. So they said, “What’s mental aftertaste?” I said, “Okay. When you’ve visited this place and you’ve driven away and you are half a mile from the facility, these people are going to talk, and what they are going to say is to describe 90 percent automotive NASA and 10 percent Disney. Now, this is the feeling they’re going to have. They’re going to be blown away by what they see.” And that was it.</p> <p>I sought visionary architects. I didn’t really know too much about architecture. I bought every book. I looked at all the things that were being built. I narrowed down the architectural choice to six. I found the architects and said, would they be interested in building a headquarters? They all said yes. I said, “I would like to come and visit you.” I visited all of these architects, and I said, “I want to go and see your best building and your worst building.” And I said, “It’s very, very important to me. I want to meet the person in charge of the building. That’s who I want to talk to.”</p> <p>So they said, “Well, of course, these are all occupied, but we can talk to our clients.” And I said, “I’ll sign confidentiality agreements” — I didn’t care about it — “but I want to be able to really understand how well the building works.” They didn’t say this, but every one of them resisted me going to see the worst building, but that’s what I did. I wasn’t interested in meeting the building managers of the inferior buildings. I wanted to see the building managers of their best buildings. I didn’t say, as they are showing me their reception — I said, “Look, don’t worry about this. I’ve seen everything. I’ve studied. I want to go into the heart of the building. I want to go into the mechanical and electrical systems. I want to understand.” I wanted to look in the lift shafts. I wanted to look in, you know — I wanted to see behind the scenes.</p> <p>I had looked at everything, and I’d been to the Getty Museum, which was just being finished by Richard Meier. I met Richard and he looked a bit weary, but I met his project manager. His budget manager was really switched on, and I spoke to Richard, and I said, “I’m a bit worried about the distance between our two countries.”</p> <p>And he said, “You know, New York to L.A. is further than New York to England, or close on it.” So he said, “I’ve been running the L.A. program and we speak English.” Blah, blah, blah. So I said, “Okay, what about your senior project manager? I want him on my project because I am buying into some of the qualities and standards and aesthetics of the Getty Museum.” And he said, “Yeah, no problem.” So I said, “Okay.” And I met with several other architects. And part of the evaluation was, did they have the capacity? So the top architects were full of work, and Richard had obviously come out of this big project and had resources.</p> <p>So I balanced everything up and thought, “I know what I want, so no one is going to impose a building on me. But more importantly, you know, I want the top-price architect because I want to hit an aesthetic target which I don’t even have defined yet.” And then I started to worry about time change. So I said to Richard, “Richard, I am ready to go, but I really need to see this is going to work. So let’s sign an agreement, but after three months, if it’s not working, I want to be able to escape.” He said, “I can’t do that.” So I said, “Well, what about if I pay you a quarter of a million dollars after three months if I’m not happy.” So he said okay, reluctantly. And I said, “But I want to be fair. This is what I’ve bought” — and I listed down the things, the project manager, blah, blah, blah, same as Getty Museum.</p> <p>A month into it I suddenly realized that the project manager’s wife had started to put pressure, you know: “I’ve just been living with the fact that you’re going backwards and forwards to L.A. and now you’re going backwards and forwards to England. You kept telling me that you would be returning to New York,” and blah, blah, blah. Understandably, he didn’t want to jeopardize his marriage. And so, after, I’d say, fumbling around in a conversation, Richard said, “There’s no point in having someone that doesn’t want to do this, and I’ve got this guy” — and I said, “Okay Rich, hold on a second. I don’t know how to measure this.” And anyway, it didn’t go well. Richard was elegant and very professional. I don’t know what the settlement was, but it was less than a quarter of a million dollars. He was disappointed. I was disappointed.</p> <p>But immediately, I went for what was really not a second choice, but a choice that became second because of the capacity. I went to Norman (Foster) and said, “Norman, I love your work, but have you really got the capacity, and can I have some senior people?” So he said, “I’m going to give you these people.” So he listed the people, all of whom became partners of the business following the success of the project. And the lead architect, in fact, on my project, has subsequently become the lead architect in the practice. So there is a friendship and a respect that has come out of that program. We’re now working on — I built another factory with him, and now I’m working on another project with him.</p> <p>The journey on that facility was truly amazing because I was a very unique customer. Meetings every week — I mean there was something like 2,000-odd meetings. And I was driving the program. Every time we came to a problem, we found solutions. I used some of our own design resources on some of the things I wanted to do.</p> <p>And ultimately, the building was complete and we did a phased occupation. And I remember putting around, the usual thing — I didn’t want people distracted, so that I took — I think it was four people from McLaren and myself and said, “Everybody else, you’re not involved. These four people are the only people that are involved.” And for years, I worked with these four people. And of course, there was a degree of resentment coming from senior people that I hadn’t involved them. But I exposed it progressively, got them into my way of thinking. But then there was a lot of people that said, “It’s too big. You are going to depersonalize the business.” “You’re going to do this and you’re going to do that.”</p> <p>So I listened and coaxed and massaged everybody. And then there was a hard core. So I got the hardcore negatives together, and I said, “It’s pretty simple. This is the date we’re moving in. Just assume that that’s the date that the train is leaving the station. You are either on it or you’re off it. But there is no wishy-washy. I’m not even prepared for you to go and try it out. You’re either 100 percent committed and everything.”</p> <p>By the handful — I mean 90 percent — I don’t think more than one person, maybe two people left. And of course, work expands into time available, if you have heard that expression. But actually, people expand into buildings so fast, they think, “How did we ever manage?” And then within one or two years, even though I tried to future-proof it, we were bursting at the seams again, and within ten years, I’m building another factory. Having tried to optimize and optimize the shoehorn and increase the density of the people, the density of desks, all this sort of thing.</p> <p>When you go back to the very early 1980s, we were less than 70 people when we formed what was McLaren International. We were quickly 1,000, and 1,500, then 2,000. In 2016, when I effectively took the final decision and entered into what was unpleasant negotiations with my shareholders on exit price, we were 3,500. And you know, that was a journey again, the company bursting at the seams, and I wanted to grow the company. So not only did I have a phenomenally strong desire to stop on my 70th birthday, primarily driven by — I saw no benefit in dying at my desk or going into some inefficiency, either through lack of commitment or tiredness or something. I wanted to do other things. So really, all the way through my career, from beginning to the very end — and my career is not over — I was always very much thinking of the vision, thinking of the way forward. My vision for the company started to be very different to my other shareholders, who were still fixated and <em>are</em> fixated on being a Grand Prix team, whereas I have always wanted to be a technology company.</p> <p><strong>McLaren Applied Technologies has gone way beyond Grand Prix into the association with the Olympics, electronic devices, and other innovations, and of course, luxury cars. Did you always have this vision of expanding the enterprise?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Your vision comes at different times and places. If you go back to the early part of my story, it started with lying beside a swimming pool in Acapulco. But those moments with different thought processes, just constantly — if you’re a serial entrepreneur, this is the way your mind works. And if you get exhausted, and you say, “I’m going to carve some time out,” and you sort of change something, and you create ten percent capacity in your life by stopping something, it would be days before you filled it with something else. You don’t ever stop. And I am difficult. I am difficult to be with, difficult to live with, but I do try and channel my, let’s say, personality traits, into business, which of course, made me somewhat —either you like me or hate me. It’s a bit like Marmite, probably a product that you don’t know, but it is one of the few products in the world that is actually marketed on the basis of a “you either love it or hate it” sort of thing. Sort of an English expression: “Not my cup of tea.” But that reputation, which I fully accept, really came from not being able to tolerate people who didn’t share my vision or didn’t really understand why we did things.</p> <p><strong>Or didn’t measure up in a way?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: I live very close to the factory. My father commuted to London, and it took him two-and-a-half hours out of his day, and I watched it for years, and I said, “There’s no way I am ever going to put myself in this situation where I’m spending two-and-a-half hours of my day traveling to and from work.” So I wanted to build my facilities close to my home. The problem — and I’ll come back to your question shortly — is that you don’t have enough time to decompress, so your family gets — you’re not where you need to be. You’re still at work when you get home, sort of thing. And just to finish on that — and maybe some of your young entrepreneurs pick this point up — I strongly recommend that if you find yourself on a short travel time, that you get into a ritual of getting home, having a shower, changing your clothes. Not to have your shower and change your clothes, but basically, you have to decompress. If you go in and start downloading into your family your pressures at work — if you take your work into your family life, you are going to damage your family life. And you know, in the end, you have to have priorities in life, and those people close to you are the most important people.</p> <p><strong>But going back to this question of diversification. Most people saw McLaren as just a Grand Prix team, but you saw this opportunity to create a diversified technology company. What was your reasoning?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: You’ve got two customers called Grand Prix drivers. You are constrained; you can’t multiply the number of teams. You are permitted to have one team. And the economic model of that team, plus or minus, is going to fall somewhere — if you want to be competitive — between 200 and 300 million pounds a year. You’re never going to get the revenue — much, either side of it. You can run in Grand Prix racing and compete for less than a hundred million, but if you want to be competitive, then you have to be in a position to spend two to three hundred million pounds a year.</p> <p>So last year, the group of companies’ combined turnover was 920 million pounds. So if you look at the model, where does the other 600-odd million pounds come from? And that’s through diversification. The first moment was actually, as I was walking amongst the company, and I had been looking at figures and I suddenly realized all of this R&D was spent for these two guys. There’s so much we know that can actually be monetized.</p> <p>But of course, you knock on someone’s door and say, “We think we can help you.” And they say, “Oh yeah, but you’re a Grand Prix team.” You say, “No, no, no, but you don’t understand” — of course, getting people at the same thought process. So then, inadvertently and coincidentally, initially the New Zealand America’s Cup team, some years ago, came and said, “Explain composites to us.” I’m fiercely patriotic, but they are the only people that came and talked. So we talked and explained. They went away; they didn’t have any money.</p> <p>It just planted a seed. And then suddenly we were approaching the Olympic Games, and I thought, “You know what? Why don’t we see if we can influence the outcome of some of our teams.” The government had constructed a concept of a national lottery and allocated funds to the Olympic Games. We had very small amounts of money, I think, whatever the money was, but I spent four times that amount because people were passionate. They were doing even more than they should have done inside the company and sort of inevitably keeping it from me, but that’s not a problem.</p> <p>We focused on rowing, cycling, and sailing. We actually focused on the winter Olympics in bobsleighs and luge, and the skeleton, and we focused on rowing and cycling and brought lots of things to bear. A lot of data acquisition. The data acquisition allowed you to be able to tell the athlete, “What you just did was what you should have done, and what you did then is what —” So if you know what’s good, then you can get muscle memory.</p> <p>So, I think the biggest impact we had was on their cyclists and analyzing their cyclists. Although we instrumented the oars, so the oars on the teams were full of electronics so that we were able to measure all the forces — who was rowing the strongest, and maybe change the positioning in the boat, but more importantly, optimize the technique. And as we started to get the results — and I’m just saying right now, we can tell the world what we’ve done — in different ways, either the athletes or the federations or the committee came and said, “Yeah, but we want to keep this secret so that we can take it to the next Olympic Games with an advantage,” which, of course, wasn’t the plan, because I needed to publicize the performance of the team and the performance of our company.</p> <p>So, to be honest, we sort of listened to them, but we still talked to people who we were trying to convince to invest in us, and two or three companies really came to the party and started to exploit predictive analytics, some of our manufacturing techniques, how we shortened time to market, how we ensured our supply chain was optimized. Most people wait for the product to arrive at their doorstep before determining whether it was suspect. Sometimes it really pays to go upstream so that your supplier is guided.</p> <p>And all of these techniques we brought to bear and this business started to flourish. And in parallel to that, we had had a brief foray into building what was called the F-1, which is now an iconic car. Twenty years ago, it set so many records and standards and gave birth to a very competitive race car, which won Le Mans but was never really economically viable. It was actually the racing program that eventually generated the revenue to make the program break even, but the road car side was going to lose money. Again, we got the timing wrong; we brought an exotic car to the market in a depression, as it were.</p> <p>But then we got more serious. In switching our alliance to Mercedes-Benz, we made a precondition that they assisted us in getting into that car market. And they swerved a little bit, which gave birth to the McLaren SLR, which was sort of a hybrid McLaren-Mercedes sports car, which we made a little over 2,000 of, and then we started on a program to make our own car company. Mercedes postured, and they were having their own problems in various ways, as companies do. So we spun the company off because they wanted to be convinced that we weren’t bleeding motor racing money into our production program.</p> <p>And so these things became ring-fenced. It was advantageous in many ways. First of all, I realized the culture in each of these companies needed to be different. You can’t put motor racing people in a production program. And as we developed our electronics and analytics business, these were people who need to be passionate about different disciplines. Mixing them in the staff restaurant was fine. That allowed us to maintain the sort of McLaren DNA, but they needed to be separated culturally. And of course, that gave us independent fiscal reporting so we could see where the profits and losses came.</p> <p>But even in the worst moments, I was saying, “Do not get distracted by Formula One. If we want our company to be truly great, we have to continue to invest in our technology business, grow the technology business, and we need more facilities, and we must go in that direction.” My other shareholders were fixated on returning to competitiveness in Formula One as fast as possible, irrespective of cost. And I just didn’t agree. Coupled with that was, if the senior person who is running the operation is in disagreement, inevitably they seek second level management’s opinion.</p> <p>There is a huge difference between being at a poker table with cash and a poker table with chips when you haven’t financed the chips. So the mindset of second level management is different. You’re not playing with your money. The great entrepreneurs, no matter how big their companies are, they are extremely aware of how the money functions in the organization —where is the wastage and where are the people? And of course, we’ve seen endless programs in companies in the world fall over because of poor direction. And then came one specific thing, and again, it’s going to come to everybody in business. You start to realize that mortality is looming and you start to think about, “Well, how do I want to play it out?”</p> <p>So two or three years ago I started to communicate with my shareholders that (a) I didn’t want to die at my desk and (b) I didn’t want to leave my money in the company. Of course, three years out is a lifetime in motor racing and I started to try to blend it into “state of the nation” letters that I would write to them.</p> <p>Inevitably, as it looms, the issue, there’s the reality they don’t necessarily — you get disagreement. And then, irrespective of all successes and all monetary gains that have been enjoyed, you get into a very hard-nosed math game — negotiation — which sort of discolors a little bit the end game, when you find yourself sat with people and the only thing that you’re really talking about is money. And inevitably, to temper the end number, there has to be some sort of attempt at surgically demonstrating why the number is this or why the number is that. Inevitably, it just gets super uncomfortable. But in the end, I was delighted with the outcome. I applied one of my experiences in life to the whole process, which I’d learned from Senna.</p> <p><strong>Ayrton Senna, the great driver?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: When I negotiated his first retainer with the company, which was a three-year, two-year option contract, and we were — it was intense. He was living in a rented home in Esher, which was about half an hour’s drive from the company, and I was going backwards and forwards. And he, of course, was playing with this option and that option. And I was saying, “Yes, but you want to drive for us” — and blah, blah, blah. We came to a hard point, and the hard point was financial difference. And he was very religious — had strong beliefs. He believed in God; he believed in values and principles. And of course, he believed in the will of God.</p> <p>I was rather mischievous, in arriving at the point where we were apart, but conceding was going to damage the relationship. So I thought and I thought, and I said, “Why don’t we toss a coin for it?” His English wasn’t perfect at the time, so I had to draw a picture of the head and a picture of the tail. And I said, “What will be will be.” Whatever was out there that can influence this outcome, it’s a greater force than things. So you’ve clearly got something maybe that will favor you, but I may be — but I am more of a fatalist, and so why don’t we go down this path? He immediately grasped the fact that the outcome was not going to be the result of one person conceding. And actually, the money wasn’t the point. At the time, and now, I am deeply respectful of money and I wouldn’t be flippant. I am never flippant, but this was the way to break the deadlock.</p> <p>The coin flew into the air, it hit a brown shag pile carpet in which we stood and shot under the curtain and didn’t have the rattle that conveyed to me that it was going to be flat. As he reached for the curtain, I said, “Stop. This may be not completely flat, and it has to be completely flat.” So we lift up the curtain very slowly and there is the coin completely flat.</p> <p>It was for the first three years; he had forgotten a multiple of three. And it was some number around three hundred or a thousand dollars, so we flipped the coin. At the time it went into the air, both of us were thinking this is three hundred thousand dollars. By the time it came to a standstill, I realized it was a million dollars. I doubt whether anyone has ever flipped a coin for a million dollars. But the bit that was relevant to this negotiation, to my recent experiences, was, I’d put him in a situation where all he thought about — 24-seven — was the negotiation. I was going back to the company and running the company with all the other things.</p> <p>And I thought, you know, “If this is going to be the end game, I will think about nothing else, and that will give me some benefit in the discussions.” And then was a point where I think fairness became more relevant. People appreciated this wasn’t very elegant, a principal shareholder. But it was too late. It was not too late to ensure that everything was properly done, but it was too late to carry the emotion, the negativity out of it. But I look back on it as one of my best negotiations ever. My outcome was, I believe, fair.</p> <p>I’m thinking very carefully about what to do. The only thing that I’ve definitely decided to do is live in England. Of course, the options are available to English people to minimize tax by moving countries. I am an English person and I am patriotic. I would rather be here. I love the weather. I love the diversity, the diversification of our weather. And of course, I’m in the position where I can go to the sun if the sun is somewhere other than England.</p> <p><strong>You worked with some of the great race car drivers of your era. What made them great, or what did you look for in a driver?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: When people come to me and they ask about drivers: How did I choose that driver? How did I choose this driver? What is the greatest quality of any driver? Of course, they quickly understand the abilities of drivers need to be different from one era to another. Fangio possibly could have driven a modern car, but most likely not. But the common denominator — and it became more relevant over the last 15, 20 years — top-of-the-line comment: sacrifice. If you want to be the best in something, in our world, everything has to come second. There are some challenges because Grand Prix drivers start so young and they are so — it’s such an intensive process of carting, etc., etc. — it’s to the detriment of their education. So as they mature into world champions, they were not always as clever and as worldly as they needed to be, and that is, unfortunately, part of the sacrifice. But it’s never too late. The smart ones quickly realize that they need to be more switched on about contracts and things like that, so they reinvent themselves. But it’s a challenging world that we live in at the moment, but it’s still a world that does respond well to a dedicated entrepreneur.</p> <p><strong>Going back to the qualities in a great driver, surely courage is part of that and a sense of being willing to take a risk. </strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Well, first of all, risk is being minimized. The chances of you hurting yourself in a Grand Prix car, just statistically, are so much better than they have ever been. The advent of carbon fiber, structural analysis, finite element analysis, things that can actually predict the performance of a structure under high forces. Greater and greater regulatory control. All of these things sort of give a driver: “It doesn’t really matter what is going to happen, I am going to walk away from it.” And that pretty much has been the case. Most drivers that have been injured in the last ten years, there’s some freak relevance. You know, a component falls off another car, bounces down the track and hits Mansell on the head. It is statistically just — you would think could never happen. And most injuries fall into that category. Or a car failure, and that’s all about the competence of the company and the team.</p> <p>The smaller teams, they wrestle to comply to the regulations sometimes, because it requires lots of testing and structural analysis. But generally, it’s a very safe sport. And if you rank it against rugby, horse racing — those are just two — miles safer, miles safer. If you want to have a head injury that is likely to carry into later life, you’re better off as a boxer than you are a rugby player, and American football is the same.</p> <p><strong>But wasn’t there a time when there were many fatalities in Formula One.</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: I like to think that I, along with other people, did a great deal to make Formula One safer. And that has cascaded down. Who would have known, when I sat in Salt Lake City and was convincing these individuals to give us technology, that pretty much every racing car in the world is made from carbon fiber? And we are the biggest producers of carbon fiber sports cars. We have a USP on that basis.</p> <p>So I think that at some point in the future, people may wake up to what John Barnard, the designer — he opened my eyes to the feasibility, and I made it commercially possible and the whole thing. I think there are a lot of things that I look back on in Grand Prix racing that I feel my fingerprints are on. Some people would say negative as well as positive, but I mean I am very comfortable. I know my values and principles of what I have and what I haven’t done in this world.</p> <p>You know, at the end of the day, you can escape everything other than your own thoughts. I sleep very comfortably at night and I’m deeply principled. I am absolutely not a fair-weather friend. I have weaknesses. Probably my biggest weakness is, “You break my trust, it’s over, it’s irreparable.” But that’s just the way I am. So you tend to have a bit of flotsam behind you in my life, people that have done things that I felt broke my trust, and then you just say, “Broken,” and then it’s just better to get on.</p> <p>But there are other people the world loves. They are huggy and kissy and basically, everybody likes them. Why? Because they say all the right things at the right time, irrespective of whether there was sincerity and truth in it. Much better to everybody, those people enjoy the adulation of being a very, very popular person. I live with myself, for better or for worse. I am a good person to have as a friend — not a great person to have as an enemy.</p> <p><strong>Sometimes the truth hurts, as you say. </strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Yes. My only motivation to write an autobiography is to make sure that my grandchildren can read something which is my version. That objective tends to see me kick the can down the road a little bit, but I have kept a lot of material to try and at least refresh my memory as to why things happened and when they happened. So actually, for it to be an interesting read, I think it shouldn’t have much motor racing in it, which probably most people will find surprising.</p> <p>I think the things that make people interesting and different is trying to explain why you did things and what your motives were, what your passions were, how you felt at a given moment of time and why emotion is a luxury. You know, if you are very angry or you’re very happy, I don’t think you’re in the best frame of mind to make decisions. I think for years I was considered emotionless and devoid of emotion. Obviously, when the television cameras fell on me, I was pretty straight-faced. They didn’t understand. Why on Earth wouldn’t you want to focus on the job in hand? If people say to me, “What’s it like socializing with Ron?” they are surprised at the answer they get. Because as hard as I focus on being disciplined and devoted and focused to my business, I’m equally and oppositely that way when I’m having fun. And I am deeply opposed to social media. I am deeply opposed to people taking pictures at my parties. You come to one of our parties, you are there to enjoy the party, and if you need to share the experience with a third party, don’t come. Be there for the experience and enjoy the moment, but don’t expect to make me happy if you’re going to start putting things on social media. Definitely, two friends have fallen out with me for that and aren’t my friends anymore because really, I think it is not the way life is. You know, it’s not me.</p> <p><strong>What are you thinking of next?</strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: I have a friend who is a neurosurgeon and, with two other neuroscientists, has developed something which I think is going to dramatically change things for a relatively large quantity of people in the world — a procedure. It actually addresses back pain, a specific type of back pain that probably, as far as their research has shown, is, about 30 percent of the people with back pain will be relieved of their back pain if this process and procedure works. They are not well equipped to monetize this, having spent a great deal of their own money. There’s been some family-and-friends funding on it. So I’m trying to contribute to that process. Again, I think it’s got a slight change-the-world feeling about it, which, if it is as successful if I hope it will be, it will have that.</p> <p><strong>What are you most proud of in this phenomenal career? </strong></p> <p>Ron Dennis: Keeping my children’s feet on the ground. It’s challenging as you become wealthier and wealthier in life, and you see how money very often — third or fourth generation — destroys people. Their inability to appreciate it, understand it, not abuse it. I think I’ve equipped my children well. And for that — simple principles, but constantly enforced throughout their childhood, and now they are all professionals. Absolutely told them early on, “Forget following me into this business.” Two reasons: Why burden them with trying to emulate my success? Anyone who is close to me, it’s not easy. But why put that pressure on the children? So I encouraged them into different things. My youngest is an architect. My son has a daughter, in Austin. My son is a product design engineer, and my eldest daughter is a doctor. They are all doing their own thing. All passionate — different levels of passion — but nevertheless, passionate about their lives. I try to facilitate and assist in their pursuing their passions.</p> <p>So really, these are part of looking forward. I don’t really spend too much time looking back. As I’ve said, there are things I’m proud of, and there are things that I am less proud of. But at the end of the day, you can go the statistical route and say it is unlikely that anyone is going to surpass my race achievements in my lifetime: 17 world championships, 150-odd Grand Prix wins.</p> <p>I still have people come up to me — and have done for years — and say, “We’ve been to your facilities. They are mind-blowing. How do you keep these standards? How do you keep this mindset?” And the answer is: by phenomenal attention to detail, and by sharing and infecting people with your passion for perfection, your desire for perfection. You know, you can’t always be the best, but you can <em>look</em> the best. We might not have the fastest car in the race circuit, but if you can do the fastest pit stop, why not have pride in that? “Well, it’s not going to make a difference.” It <em>does</em> make a difference It <em>does</em> make a difference. These are tiny examples of how I think.</p> <p>I’m not the first person to identify passion as the core ingredient of success, and secondly, I was there to say my success has come from passion. Don’t underestimate — if you’re not passionate about what you do — which is a sort of hidden opposite to what I was saying — don’t do it. You will not succeed in greatness. You will not be a super-achiever if you’re not passionate about what you do.</p> <p><strong>Well, we wish you all the best in your endeavors and we’re sure you will continue to achieve amazing things. Thank you.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Ron Dennis Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>18 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986.jpg" data-image-caption="June 24, 1990: Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna (1960-1994, center) and his Austrian teammate Gerhard Berger (right) with the rest of the McLaren team at the Mexican Grand Prix at the Mexico City circuit. (Sutton/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Senna With McLaren Team" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986-380x257.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-129711986-760x514.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71184210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942.jpg" data-image-caption="May 25, 2008: McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain celebrates with his team principal and career mentor Ron Dennis after a victory in the FIA Formula One Grand Prix de Monaco on the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo. In December 1995, at the age of 10, Hamilton approached Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, “I want to race for you one day … I want to race for McLaren.” (Photo by Paul Gilham/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-81230942" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942-380x271.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-81230942-760x541.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71052631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271.jpg" data-image-caption="1968: A 21-year-old Ron Dennis oversees the scrutineering and weighing of the double high winged #3 Brabham Racing Organisation Brabham BT26 Repco V8 of Jack Brabham during practice for the United States Grand Prix at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Grand Prix Photo/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-138972271" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271-380x270.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-138972271-760x540.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464.jpg" data-image-caption="July 2, 2017: Ron Dennis with his partner, Carol Weatherall, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. (David M. Benett)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-806105464" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-806105464-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526.jpg" data-image-caption="March 1986: McLaren driver Alain Prost, team boss Ron Dennis, and McLaren designer John Barnard, at the Grand Prix of Brazil, Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet. In 1980, Dennis recruited Barnard to join McLaren and work on the first carbon fiber composite (CFC) chassis in Formula One, the McLaren MP4. (© Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty)" data-image-copyright="Prost & Others At Grand Prix Of Brazil" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-859792526-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1.jpg" data-image-caption="May 13, 2004: Her Majesty the Queen, escorted by McLaren CEO and Chairman Ron Dennis, officially opens the McLaren Technology Centre, the new headquarters of the McLaren Group in Woking, Surrey, England. Designed by renowned British architect Lord Norman Foster, the kidney-shaped building serves as the base for the company’s automotive arm, Formula One team, and McLaren Applied Technologies. (Photo credit: Arthur Edwards/AFP/Getty)" data-image-copyright="The Queen tours the McLaren Technology P" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-50828599-1-760x496.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040.jpg" data-image-caption="July 18, 1970: Australian racing driver Jack Brabham, Formula One world champion in 1959, 1960, and 1966, with his chief mechanic, Ron Dennis, prior to the 1970 Grand Prix of Great Britain in Brands Hatch, England. (© Getty)" data-image-copyright="Jack Brabham, Ron Dennis, Grand Prix Of Great Britain" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040-380x249.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-866962040-760x498.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580.jpg" data-image-caption="May 23, 1993: Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna and McLaren team boss Ron Dennis celebrate victory at the Monaco Grand Prix. Senna, a three-time Formula One world champion, is widely regarded as the greatest racing driver who ever lived. On May 1, 1994, Senna died as a result of his car crashing into a concrete barrier while he was leading the San Marino Grand Prix at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. (Credit: Steve Etherington/EMPICS)" data-image-copyright="Formula One Motor Racing - Monaco Grand Prix - Monte Carlo" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-649938580-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4785992217899" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426.jpg" data-image-caption="1999: Ron Dennis with his wife, Lisa, and their three children, arriving at West End Lyceum Theatre for the London premiere of Walt Disney’s <i>The Lion King</i>. In 2008, Ron and Lisa Dennis divorced after 22 years of marriage. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-830278426" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426-257x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-830278426-514x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672.jpg" data-image-caption="October 18, 2017: Awards Council member Lord Jacob Rothschild presents the Golden Plate Award to Ron Dennis at the American Academy of Achievement’s 52nd annual International Achievement Summit in London, England. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_0672" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0672-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1.jpg" data-image-caption="November 17, 2011: British Prime Minister David Cameron talks with Ron Dennis, Executive Chairman of McLaren Automotive, during a visit to the McLaren Technology Centre and McLaren Production Centre in Woking, Southeast England. David Cameron unveiled a one-million-British-pound prize, which will be awarded every two years for “groundbreaking advances in engineering which have led to significant international public benefit.” (Oli Scarff)" data-image-copyright="British Prime Minister David Cameron (L)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-133124338-1-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583.jpg" data-image-caption="March 1997: Ron Dennis celebrating with drivers Mika Häkkinen (McLaren), Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), and David Coulthard (McLaren) at the Australian Grand Prix at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="FORMEL 1: GP von AUSTRALIEN 1997 Melbourne, 09.03.97" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-52918583-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65657894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610.jpg" data-image-caption="1983: Ron Dennis and driver Niki Lauda debuting McLaren’s new Porsche-built TAG turbo engine at the Dutch Grand Prix. Dennis persuaded the retired Lauda to return to Formula One. (Hoch Zwei/Corbis via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Formel 1, Grand Prix Niederlande 1983, Zandvoort, 28.08.1983 Boxengasse, McLaren-Box Ron Dennis, McLaren Niki Lauda McLa" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610-380x250.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-646446610-760x499.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484.jpg" data-image-caption="September 13, 2007: Ron Dennis after the World Motor Sport Council hearing at the <i>Federation Internationale de l'Automobile</i> in Paris. The World Council found that, as a result of the conduct of McLaren’s chief designer, Mike Coughlan, McLaren did possess confidential Ferrari data that was used in a way that interfered with the World Championship. The World Council stripped the team (but not its drivers) of its points – and fined McLaren $100 million. Dennis retains his absolute conviction that the team did not benefit from Coughlan’s actions. (© Getty)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-76712484" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-76712484-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2014: Ron Dennis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, McLaren, and Yasuhisa Arai, Chief Officer of Motorsport, Honda, as McLaren-Honda announce its new driver line-up for 2015 in Woking, England. (Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-460308252" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-GettyImages-460308252-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.76447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic.jpg" data-image-caption="1966: Nineteen-year-old Ron Dennis, left, a full-time mechanic at Cooper Racing Car Company, with lead racing driver Jochen Rindt, right. Rindt arranged for Dennis to join him when he moved to Brabham Racing for the 1968 season." data-image-copyright="wp-dennis - 19 - mechanic" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic-380x291.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/wp-dennis-19-mechanic-760x581.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: Ron Dennis addresses Academy delegates and members during a symposium at Claridge's Hotel in London. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_0533" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0533-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.4" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.png" data-image-caption="2007: Ron Dennis during the launch of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-22 Formula One car in <i>L'Hemisferic, Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias</i>, Valencia, Spain. (Photo by David Davies - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120-380x152.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/dennis-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120-760x304.png"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on February 6, 2018</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever business ambitious analytical extroverted start-a-business " data-year-inducted="1997" data-achiever-name="Ellison"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ell0-001a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ell0-001a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Larry J. 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Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20180630103330/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. 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