An Authentic Account of Adam Smith

Gavin Kennedy was a Scottish economist and founder of Negotiate. He was a leading figure in the world of negotiation and was involved in many high profile consultancy cases for governments and businesses. He was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh. Kennedy studied economics at Strathclyde University, graduating with a BA in 1965 and then studying for an MSc. After taking a Ph.D. at Brunel University in London, he returned to Strathclyde as a senior lecturer in 1973. In 1980 he left Strathclyde for a professorial chair at Heriot-Watt University, and in 1986 he founded a company, Negotiate, to commercialise what he was teaching. He trained thousands of managers in the techniques he had developed. Kennedy also wrote biographies of William Bligh (1978) and Adam Smith (2005). In the 1970s, Kennedy became active in the Scottish National Party (SNP). In 1976 he wrote a paper entitled A Defence Budget for Scotland and edited a book of essays entitled The Radical Approach: Papers on an Independent Scotland. In the General Election of 1979 he was the SNP candidate in Edinburgh Central and he subsequently joined the left-wing 79 Group.