The foreign invasion of blue-chip British boardrooms continues. Carl-Henric Svanberg’s appointment as BP’s chairman means he joins fellow Nordics Jorma Ollila at Royal Dutch Shell and Michael Treschow at Unilever as well as other non-Brit chairmen at Rio Tinto, AstraZeneca and Diageo.

It is essential multinational boards show a multinational face to the world. Business figures from the Nordic region have several advantages in this respect: their command of English commends them to multinationals, while the fact talented executives quickly become big fish in small domestic ponds encourages them to look abroad for career advancement.