quiet one with a hard centre

SIR Dominic Cadbury is such a self-effacing type that, 18 months on, some City folk have yet to register that he has taken over from Sir Roger Gibbs as chairman of Wellcome Trust, the group that is considering a 300 million bid for the Dome, which Cadbury sees as a future biotechnology research centre.

With 15 billion of assets and spending 600 million a year,Well- comeist he world 's largest medical research charity.It likes to say it operates from "a balanced, rational,long-term perspective ",so there is only so much talking to politicians that Cadbury will take.

Outwardly smooth,milk chocolate, inside he 's hard centre.When he retired as chairman of Cadbury Schweppes a year ago,he decided that the chairmanship would go outside the family.

At Wellcome Trust,Cadbury,60,took over from Gibbs,a man not given to taking things on trust.But Gibbs,66,did not put Wellcome 's trust in pharmaceutical shares alone and sold to Glaxo the trust 's controlling stake in its principal asset, pharmaceuticals maker Wellcome Foundation.Bitterly resented by employees at the time for the redundancies that followed the tie-up with Glaxo,the sale has powered market-beating growth ever since.The trust retains a highly- profitable stake in GlaxoSmithKline.

Gibbs 'father was Sir Geoffrey Gibbs, who as chairman of the Nuffield Foundation,persuaded Lord Nuffield to diversify out of what was to become British Leyland.

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