| Biography | Harold Stanley Kalms, Baron Kalms (born 21 November 1931) is the life president and former chairman of Dixons Retail (formerly DSG International plc, Dixons Group). Dixons Retail owns Currys, PC World, Knowhow (in-house services) and various international electronics retailers. He spent his entire career from 1948 working for Dixons, which was founded by his father Charles Kalms in 1937. In 2002, he joined Volvere plc, a British turnaround group, as chairman.
Stanley Kalms was educated at Christ's College, Finchley. He joined Dixons in 1948 at the age of 16 and over the years grew the company from a one-store family business into Europe's leading specialist electrical retailer. Kalms was appointed Chairman of the Dixons Group plc in 1971. He is also a Governor of Dixons City Academy in Bradford, West Yorkshire (where the state of the art theatre complex is named in his honour), a Director of Business for Sterling, and a Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
Kalms is also involved in many private charitable activities including the setting up of the Stanley Kalms Foundation in London and the Stanley Kalms Readership in Business Ethics and Strategic Management at University of North London. He is also involved in the King's Hospital ISLET Diabetes Research Programme.
Kalms has close connections to the University of Buckingham. He received an honorary degree from Buckingham and Chris Woodhead is the Sir Stanley Kalms Professor of Education.
Kalms has written in the press on the subjects of European Monetary Union (EMU), and on Corporate Governance; and a book - A Time to Change - a review of the activities of the United Synagogue (1996).
He received his knighthood in the 1996 New Years Honours for his services to the electrical retailing industry and made a life peer as Baron Kalms, of Edgware in the London Borough of Barnet in 2004.
Kalms was treasurer of the Conservative Party, 2001-3. Like many in the party, he opposes the euro. He is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. Kalms attacked William Hague for his position on the Israel attack in Lebanon, calling him an "ignorant armchair critic" and that remarks were "downright dangerous". He was expelled from the party in 2009 after voting for UKIP and is currently non-affiliated.
He was the Director of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think tank from 1991 to 2001. |