I met him only after I became master of St Peter's College, Oxford, but he had a palpable gift for friendship and within minutes of our first encounter he was coming up with schemes and plots to help the college.
And then there is the money - salary up from £140,000 a year to £850,000 and potentially millions more in share options and incentive schemes.
He supports a "European" element in national unemployment benefits schemes, aimed at softening the impact of mass unemployment in large parts of particularly southern Europe and especially among the young.
INDIEGOGO iOS/Android Indiegogo is the main rival to crowdfunding website Kickstarter: a place where musicians, film-makers, gadget makers and others try to raise money for their grand schemes.
Switching public spending from "grey" projects such as roads and airports, to "green" schemes such as parks, tree planting and allotments, would not just save the government billions of pounds, improve health, and cut climate emissions, but it would create jobs and make British cities more attractive.
On Wednesday, 29 public sector unions representing 2.6m workers, are staging a mass strike in protest at aphalanx of proposed changes to pension schemes which, they say, will mean their members have to contribute more and work longer for a worse deal at the end.
Replace the work programme with more locally-focused schemes for helping the long term unemployed back to work.
"Underneath the thick layers of greenwash many of these schemes are unsustainable, unviable and unpopular, but Gordon Brown wants to impose them from Whitehall irrespective of local opinion".
She said Chevron had worked with developing country representatives and sponsored workshops to discuss carbon reduction schemes.
The trio scored well against ten criteria, including bringing in licensing schemes, fining lettings agents that break the law, prosecuting criminal landlords and running phone lines to give renters advice.
We will also set up a Treasury Commission to monitor the effectiveness of the new Diverted Profits Tax and bring in any further measures necessary to prevent large multinational corporations using aggressive tax avoidance schemes".
