(Bloomberg) -- Paul Myners, the City of London grandee who helped oversee Gordon Brown’s response to the financial crisis, has died. He was 73.

Myners died on Sunday, according to a statement by Edelman UK, where he served as chairman.

“With great sadness we announce the loss of our beloved father Lord Paul Myners,” his five children said in a statement. “He passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital.”

Myners, who began his career as a teacher and then a financial journalist, got his start in the City of London when he joined investment bank Rothschild. He spent nearly two decades as Gartmore’s chief executive officer and was also a director of NatWest Group Plc, Coutts and Lloyd’s of London. 

Some of his other positions included chairman of retailer Marks & Spencer Group Plc and the Guardian Media Group. He was appointed Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury in 2008, just two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

“I was confronted with a single item agenda: the banking system,” he said in a 2016 interview. “I just rest my case on the fact that the building was alight, but it didn’t burn down.”

He left the post in 2010. He was a member of the House of Lords and was a persistent critic of Greensill Capital, which collapsed in 2021. 

“His experience was truly unmatched and there are few people who bring such depth of knowledge and experience from the top of both the private and public sector,” Ed Williams, president and chief executive officer of Edelman EMEA, said in the statement. “Through his professional life, he lead some of Britain’s largest and most cherished companies, and in government as a key figure helping to resolve the financial crisis.”

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