Donald Stokes

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Donald Gresham Stokes, Baron Stokes (22 March 1914 - ) was an English industrialist who started his career in 1930 as an apprentice with Leyland Motors Ltd, and (with a break for military service between 1939 and 1945) enjoyed a successful career within that company until his appointment in 1968 as chairman and managing director of the British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BL), a challenging role much in the public eye at the time, and one that he sustained with evident ebullience till 1975. In 1977 Michael Edwardes was appointed Chief Executive at British Leyland, but Stokes remained on the board till 1979.

Stokes was essentially a salesman, and while he successfully led Leyland-Triumph in the period up to 1968, never really got to grips with the scale and politics of British Leyland, which now incorporated BMC, Rover, Jaguar and related commercial vehicle brands. His efforts to bring in senior executives from competitors were only partially successful, and persistent infighting (such as the refusal of Triumph to accept the Rover V8 engine for the Stag convertible, and the discrimination against MG in allocating investment funding in favour of Triumph) sapped the competitive position of the new business.

Both before and during his period of leadership, the British motor industry suffered from poor profitability, which went hand in hand with chronic under-investment in production technologies and facilities. This was a part of the background to BL's famously awful industrial relations during the 1970s. Characteristic BL introductions included the Morris Marina and Austin Allegro, inspired respectively by the more thoughtfully developed and charismatic Ford Cortina and Citroen GS competitor products.