He was born as Pehr Gustaf Gyllenhammar. But it was as "PG" that he became known during his time as CEO and chairman of the board for AB Volvo.
His career began in the insurance industry, where he succeeded his father as CEO of Skandia in 1970. But just a year later, he took the leap to Volvo and took over the CEO role after his father-in-law Gunnar Engellau.
"PG" quickly became a popular figure in Swedish business, with bold proposals and an engagement in various social issues.
I guess that the fact that people obviously had sympathy for me was that I was a little different in my way of speaking and my view on work and workers, he said to TT in 2017.
Dramatic Departure
Gyllenhammar broadened Volvo's operations, including making the company a major shareholder in the pharmaceutical company Pharmacia. But there were also failed plans for a merger with Saab-Scania in 1977 and an oil cooperation with the Norwegian state in 1978.
In the end, however, another bold proposal put an end to "Mr Volvo" after over 20 years.
Gyllenhammar tried as chairman of the board in the early 1990s to drive through a merger with the French car giant Renault. But when he faced opposition from then-CEO Sören Gyll and several major shareholders, he resigned in dramatic fashion and moved to London.
"I was finished. Done with Volvo, done with Sweden", he wrote many years later in the book "Perspectives".
A few years after his departure, Volvo sold its passenger car division to Ford, which more than ten years later sold it to the Chinese company Geely.
The New Volvo "Ugly"
"PG" Gyllenhammar was still critical of Volvo's development long after his time at the helm.
He was not impressed with the cars themselves either.
I test-drove the Volvo XC90 when the first variant came out. But... first, it was ugly. Second, it was too rough. Third, you had poor visibility when sitting in it, he said in 2020.
Pehr G Gyllenhammar also engaged in politics and was in the early 1980s close to becoming party leader for The Liberals. In the late 1970s, he was also involved in an attempt to mediate peace in the Middle East conflict.
But it was as an industrial leader that "PG" became most known.
After his time at Volvo, he followed with, among other things, a few years as chairman of the board in the Stenbeck sphere's power company Kinnevik and in the British insurance company Commercial Union (now Aviva).
Pehr G Gyllenhammar was born in Gothenburg on April 28, 1935. He was the son of Pehr Gyllenhammar and Aina Kaplan.
He was married from 1959 until his wife's death in 2008 to Christina Engellau, with whom he had four children (Cecilia, Charlotte, Oscar, and Sophie, all born in the 1960s).
He was married from 2010 to 2012 to journalist Christel Behrmann and married for the third time in 2013, to British Lee Welton Croll. The couple had a daughter, Barrett, in 2016.
Pehr G Gyllenhammar, often called "PG", is most known as the CEO of AB Volvo from 1971 to 1983, and then as chairman of the board from 1983 to 1993.
After his time at Volvo, he was for many years a board professional, including in Kinnevik, the news agency Reuters, the investment bank Rothschild Europe, and the British insurance company Commercial Union (now Aviva).
Since the 1990s, he has lived abroad, mostly in London and then in Toronto, with a few exceptions.
