Robert Kilgour is a Scottish entrepreneur, investor, property developer and philanthropist who founded Four Seasons Health Care in 1988, opening its first care home in May 1989 in Fife in Scotland. He left the company in early 2000 when it was operating 101 care homes and employing around 6,500 staff, the UK’s fifth largest care home operator, subsequently making his final financial exit from the company in 2004. Four Seasons Health Care is still one of the UK’s largest care home operators with some 185 care homes, caring for about 8,000 residents and employing around 12,000 staff.
Robert founded and is CEO of Dow Investments Plc, now in its 32nd year. In 2004 he founded and is currently Executive Chairman of Renaissance Care which operates sixteen care homes throughout Scotland with around 1,200 staff. He is a co-founder and director of video and security systems specialists, NW Security Group, and was also a founder shareholder and chairman of Kingdom FM Radio, the local radio franchisee for Fife until he engineered its recent sale. Robert holds several other non-executive directorships as well as several Senior Consultant and Senior Adviser roles.
Robert’s first business venture, while attending Stirling University, was running a stall selling jeans and t-shirts at Edinburgh’s Ingliston Sunday outdoor market. In 2006, he founded the Scottish online political think-tank, Think Scotland, which celebrates its 15th anniversary later this year and he also founded, in 2017, SBUK (www.scottish business.uk) to campaign against a second Scottish Independence Referendum. He has also served on both the CBI Scotland Council and the CBI UK SME Council.
Born in Edinburgh, brought up in Fife and educated at Loretto School in Musselburgh, Robert now splits his time between his main home in London where his wife works and his home in Fife, whenever possible raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support - £2m plus over the last thirty years and he was recently appointed as Macmillan’s first Ambassador in December 2018. Relaxation is trying to compete with his four adult children at any sport!