Aberdeen Rich List 2025
Aberdeens Richest - GROUP 2
GROUP 2
7. Klaas Zwaart – Oil & Gas | Motor Racing | Investments
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Estimated Wealth: £560m
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Although Klaas Zwaart is no longer based in Aberdeen, his fortune was made in the city, which is why he remains on this list. In 1979, Klaas found himself in a £9k a year salary role at Shell's offices in Tullos, Aberdeen, presenting a revolutionary idea for a new piece of drilling equipment to his bosses. Seeking funding to develop his concept, he was advised by his superiors to focus on his day job and abandon his "dreams." Undeterred, Klaas used his own funds to build a prototype in his garage. Returning to Shell with the working model, he was granted approval to trial the device, which reduced drill time by 30%.
In 1980, Klaas founded Petroline, and after his trial's success, he transformed offshore drilling operations. His innovation became the industry standard, with other contractors quickly adopting his design. In 1999, he sold Petroline to Weatherford for £100m.
After this, Klaas diversified his investments into medical research, developing one of the first fingerprint scanning devices, which read the fourth layer under the skin. He also ventured into the world of sports cars, creating the Ascari brand and building a £50m race track resort in southern Spain.
Klaas is also known for his Formula 1 car collection, valued at around £30m. His investments and assets, many of which are outside the UK, make calculating his exact wealth challenging, but his entrepreneurial success is clear.
63. Colin Lawson – Transport Logistics
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Estimated Wealth £18m
Colin Lawson Transport is one of the most trusted names in haulage across Aberdeen. Colin began his journey in 1997, taking a major financial risk to purchase his first haulage truck. Initially working third-party contracts with lower margins, he quickly realised the key to growth lay in dealing directly with end clients, where returns were higher.
As the oil & gas industry surged in the early 2000s, Colin succeeded in partially breaking the stronghold held by giants like Petersen and ASCO over offshore transportation contracts. Through relentless sales efforts, he steadily built his business into one of the most successful logistics providers in Aberdeenshire.
By 2024, the company owns over 75 trucks and 110 trailers—fleet assets valued around £15m. With 2023 sales hitting £8.3m and a gross profit of approximately £1.1m, the business is estimated to be worth around £18m.
55. Stewart Proctor – Tech Industry – Motor Racing
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Estimated Wealth: £22 million
Stewart Proctor, a founding Director of prosource.it, holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen and a Diploma in Management Studies from Robert Gordon University. In the late 1980s, his lifestyle was filled with luxury sports cars and glamorous company. A serious back injury at the Warehouse Gym could have changed the course of his life—but Stewart made a full recovery.
He went on to spend 12 years at Computacenter, managing major accounts for blue-chip clients, before co-founding the IT services company Promac with Steve Mackie in 1999. This venture paved the way for the creation of prosource.it in June 2003. Unlike many Aberdeen startups focused on oil and gas, prosource.it carved out a unique position by supplying thousands of IT professionals to the banking and finance sectors worldwide.
Like many of Aberdeen’s millionaires, Stewart is passionate about motor racing. He competes in the British GT Championship driving a McLaren 720S GT3, often alongside his son, Lewis. The pair also race in the prestigious International GT Open, held on world-renowned Formula 1 circuits across the globe.
50. Dan Millard – Oil & Gas Inspection and Integrity Services
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Estimated Wealth: £28 million
At just 33 years old, Dan Millard is the youngest self-made entrepreneur on the Aberdeen Rich List. A graduate of Dundee, Dan founded Eserv at the age of 23, driven by firsthand industry experience. While working as an Integrity Repair Orders Manager at the BP Sullom Voe Oil Terminal, he identified a costly inefficiency—millions were being spent on external surveys due to a lack of accessible plant data.
Dan’s solution was both innovative and timely. With the development of cutting-edge 3D scanning technology, he pioneered a system that could digitally scan oil and gas assets, creating a real-time Digital Twin. This approach allowed clients to pre-emptively gather asset data, streamlining the repair process and eliminating long wait times for traditional surveys.
His breakthrough transformed asset integrity management across the oil and gas industry, offering significant time and cost savings. A subsequent investment from the Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) enabled Eserv to adapt its technology to the wind energy sector, developing Digital Twin solutions for renewable energy infrastructure.
Today, Eserv operates across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and continues to expand rapidly. In 2022, Vespa Capital acquired a stake in the company, providing a strong private equity platform to support its next phase of growth.
Rich List Number
Name
Net Worth
44
Ricky Simpson – Bars, Nightclubs, Property
£35M
29
Johanna Basford – Publishing & Bestselling Author
£90M
19
Leslie Benzies – Rockstar Games Visionary | Grand Theft Auto Creator | Video Game Industry Icon
£178M
14
Martin Dickie – BrewDog Co-Founder, Brewing Pioneer
£290M
7
Klaas Zwaart – Oil & Gas | Motor Racing | Investments
£560M
63
Colin Lawson – Transport Logistics
£18M
55
Stewart Proctor – Tech Industry – Motor Racing
£22M
50
Dan Millard – Oil & Gas Inspection and Integrity Services
£28M
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Stuart Clarkson – Bars – Property Development
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Dave Cormack – Software & Football
Steve Judge – Space Solutions
Considine – The Aberdein Considine Family
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Eddie Anderson – ARR Craib – Transport and Logistics
Adrian Taylor & Family –Taylors Industrial Waste
Stewart Milne – Housebuilding | Property Development
Robert Kidd – Oil & Gas Rental Equipment – ITS (International Tubular Services)
Peter Tait – Fishing
Roy Macgregor - Global Energy Group
Nicky Walker – Walkers Shortbread | Food & Drink
Martin Gilbert – Finance, Investment & Consulting
Sandy Clark – Finance Expert | Investment Strategist | Corporate Leader
Paul Lawrie – Golf
Jimmy Buchan – Fishing & Seafood Supply
Ian Dunbar – Kirkwood Homes Founder & House Building Pioneer
Marshall Family – Marshall Trailers & Agricultural Innovation
Ian Suttie – Property and Oil
Douglas Craig – Craig Group | Shipping & Offshore Services
Alistair Locke – Abbot Group | Motor Fuel Group | Distilleries
Trond Mohn – Framo & One Subsea – Oil & Gas - Inheritance
Andy Bird – Inoapps Founder & Software Development Visionary
Mike Straughen – Executive Leadership | Management Expert | Non-Executive Directorships
Eric Evans – Oil Services | Media | International Trade
Alan Massie – Carlton Rock – Property Developer
Jim Geddie – Oil & Gas – Apex Tubulars – Motor Racing
Bob Drummond – Hydrasun | D2Zero
Tommy Dreelan – Oil & Gas | Motor Racing
64. Scott Martin – CEO Glacier Energy – Accountancy MBOs
59. Mark Cavanagh – XPD8 and Oil Plus Ltd – Property Investment
Alistair Thomson – Fishing Rights | Land Investment | Property Development
Malcolm Allan – House Building Entrepreneur
John Ray – Rigblast | Property | Oil & Gas Services
Derek Nicol & Stephanie Nicol – Nicol of Skene – Civil Engineering
Doug Duguid – Oil & Gas Services & Renewables
Tony Quinn – Pet Food, Confectionery & Motorsport
James Watt – BrewDog | Brewing | Beer | Investment
Glenn Gordon – Whisky – Glenfiddich – Distilling - Inheritance
Ean Emslie – Commercial Property Rental
Maitland Mackie 3 – Ice Cream & Agribusiness
Shaun Ross – Founder of Metrol Technology (Photo Unavailable)
Sir Jim Milne – Balmoral Group | Hotelier | Property
Tom Cross – Oil & Gas | Parkmeade Group
Steve Mackie – Prosource – I.T. Software and Corporate I.T. Services
John Heiton – OEG Group | Oilfield Equipment Rental
Robert (Bob) Keiller – Oil & Gas Services | Business Consultancy
Larry Kinch – Oil & Gas Exploration
George Maxwell – Eland Oil & Gas | Oil & Gas Exploration
Doug Milne – MTM Construction – Civil Engineering
Alistair Langlands – WOODGROUP – Investments & Directorships
Graham Wood – Hotels – Bars – Property Development
Michael Freeman – CAN Offshore | Oil & Gas Services
Steven Ferguson – Ferguson Group, Oil & Gas Logistics
Scotoil Graham Davidson Family
Mackintosh Plant Hire – Moira, Suzanne, Albert, Gary, and Moira Mackintosh
Graeme Bone – Drum Property Group Founder | Prime Four Developer | UK Commercial Real Estate Visionary
Conrad Ritchie & The Ritchie Family
John Clark – Car Dealership
Sir Ian Wood – Fishing & Oil & Gas – Rig Maintenance – Philanthropy
Billionaire industrialist Sir Ian Wood stands as the wealthiest homegrown founder of a company in Scotland. When he stepped down from the helm in 2013, his creation—Wood Group plc—had grown into a global powerhouse valued at $12 billion, operating in more than 60 countries, employing 60,000 people, and elevating his personal fortune to over £2 billion.​
A figure both formidable and fiercely debated, Sir Ian Wood’s life unfolds as an extraordinary saga—one marked by relentless effort, unwavering determination, profound personal sacrifice, moments of tragedy, brushes with disaster, and the darker currents of betrayal, greed, immense wealth, and influence.​
Beginning with his family’s modest fishing-boat repair business in 1967, he boldly steered the company into the emerging world of oil and gas just as the industry reached Britain’s shores in the 1970s. From there, he built a sprawling empire that touched shipping, energy, fishing, technology, travel, electronics, power generation, offshore drilling, and property development. His leadership oversaw the most dramatic industrial transformation Aberdeen had ever seen.​Now, for the first time, the story long hidden behind closed doors is revealed.
This is an explosive, deeply revealing journey into the sometimes shadowy, often ruthless, yet undeniably electrifying world of the Aberdeen oil and gas sector—its power brokers, its high-stakes decisions, and the man whose influence shaped an era.Sir Ian’s real-life ascent makes HBO’s Succession seem like little more than a gentle bedtime tale.​His achievements stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greatest entrepreneurs in any industry, at any point in history.