Stanley Kiaer might have pursued a promising career in the City of London, where he worked in shipping and with Roche pharmaceutical company after his graduation from Cambridge. Instead he resigned to follow his calling into non-profit work, not only with the Oxford Group, the Christian charity which campaigned for ‘moral and spiritual rearmament’, but also, for 13 years, as the Director of the Institute of Business Ethics.
He was the Secretary of the trusts which owned and ran the Westminster Theatre, renowned for its contemporary Christian plays, from 1964 till it ceased productions in 1990. The theatre had been purchased by the Westminster Memorial Trust, on behalf of Moral Re-Armament (MRA), in 1946 in memory of the men and women associated with the movement who had given their lives during World War Two. An able administrator, Kiaer was also the Secretary of Westminster Productions, the company that staged the plays. He became the Secretary of the Oxford Group, which now campaigns as Initiatives of Change, from 1994 till 2001 when he turned 70.
Kiaer became the Director of the Institute of Business Ethics from the year of its inception in 1986 till 1999. He was a man of impeccable personal integrity. When it came to avoiding police bribery and corruption he would quote, on the issue of reciprocity, ‘You can give a copper a cuppa, but you can’t give him supper.’
