The Lowdown: A ruthless priest - Gerry Robinson reinvents himself

The Arts Council boss and ex-head of Granada is TV's new business troubleshooter. Jason Nissé tunes in

The music starts. It's the theme from the 1970s TV series The Persuaders, which starred Roger Moore and Tony Curtis as two playboy detectives. A smartly dressed, middle-aged man walks purposefully through an impossibly minimalist office and sits down at a lonely-looking desk. The voiceover says: "Gerry Robinson is rich and ruthless."

Gerry Robinson? Cuddly old Gerry Robinson? The charming, unpretentious Irishman who turned Granada around and stepped down just before the proverbial hit the fan? The Arts Council chairman who managed to unite the normally fractious cultural intelligentsia behind him? Not that Gerry Robinson?

Well, it is. A week on Wednesday the 54-year-old, seen by many as one of the best businessmen Britain has produced in the past 25 years, starts a whole new career – as a TV presenter. Robinson will be taking on the mantle worn a decade ago by the former ICI boss Sir John Harvey-Jones in his Troubleshooter series, in which he turned up at companies in difficulty and dispensed top-grade management advice. Robinson will be doing the same, except that he will be concentrating on family businesses. The series is called I'll Show Them Who's Boss.

"I was intrigued by the idea – I got totally caught up in it," says Robinson, explaining that the BBC Business Unit thought up the concept and came to him on the back of a programme from the Trouble at the Top series about Granada's takeover of the Forte hotels group. "For me, business is not about the nuts and bolts, it's about the people. Most of the issues you get in small businesses are the same as in large ones. And they're often more difficult to solve because you don't have the resources and you can't pay for the top talent. Then there's the complication of families on top of that."

Robinson is the ninth of 10 children and admits freely he wouldn't have ever dreamt of going into business with any of his siblings. The tensions within a family inevitably come to the surface when commercial decisions are being made; family hierarchies tend not to correspond to lean-and-mean business structures; and the patriarch might not be the best managing director. The third programme in the series deals with just this issue. Robinson persuades a West Country fruit and vegetable company to pass over the three older bosses and put a 27-year-old nephew in charge.

"I always come from the belief that you have to get the person running the business right," Robinson explains. "If you work for someone you don't like or respect, then you tend not to be effective. You have to find the right person in the business – it could be because you have management talent or because you own the company."

It's a lesson that was brought home to Robinson when Granada bought Forte. The business was then run by Sir Rocco Forte, son of the founder Lord (Charles) Forte. "He wasn't the right man to step into Charles's shoes," argues Robinson.

Perhaps the most intriguing programme in the series is the second, which involves a coffee stall chain run by three Mexican-Scottish brothers. Robinson tells them they have to choose one to be the boss. They agree, but are shocked when he suggests the middle brother, Allan, rather than the ambitious youngest brother, Alastair. Their reaction (they reject his advice and refuse to co-operate any further with the filming) is in sharp contrast to the positive comments they have made about him at the start of the process. Alastair even describes Robinson as a "combination of a shrink and a priest".

"That was funny," laughs Robinson. "You know I nearly became a priest."

The TV series is part of a portfolio career he has pursued since he stepped down at Granada at the start of 2001. He is also chairman of the drinks group Allied Domecq, a job he enjoys despite the fair amount of travelling involved, which he doesn't like. Robinson has a genuine affection for Domecq's chief executive, Philip Bowman, describing him as "decent" and "straight".

He is also chairman of the Arts Council, though he will retire in the new year after six years in the job. In his time he has reformed the organisation's cumbersome structure, getting rid of its regional boards. "I enjoy it now but it was quite a struggle at first," Robinson admits. "It's so difficult to get things changed. Things that would take six months in a company take 18 months."

One of the ways he won over the artistic community was to invite artists into the decision-making process – including sculptors Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, dancer Deborah Bull and pianist Joanna MacGregor. "If you want to know about something," says Robinson, "you desperately need to talk to the ones who are going to be the beneficiaries of the money."

He is also spending more time at his country retreat in Ireland, painting, woodworking and even building bridges. It is a radical change from 23 years climbing the corporate ladder, first at Grand Metropolitan, then when he led the buyout of catering group Compass, and then in his nine years at Granada.

Cynics would argue that Robinson left Granada just at the right time, as the business was turning down and struggling to manage its merger with Compass. His colleague and successor at Granada, Charles Allen, is now facing criticism from shareholders over his pay deal and management style, and there are even suggestions he might have to step down.

"There were two things that were unfortunate for Charles," Robinson says. "Compass shareholders didn't think the merger was a good idea [Compass has since been demerged] and for the first time in 30 years TV advertising turned down. No one could have predicted that.

"Charles inherited a difficult situation. They did the deal with ITV Digital on football, a deal that never made any sense. [That deal was also unwound, at a cost of over £250m to Granada.] Managerially, though, things are in good order."

His years at Granada have left Robinson wealthy, if not necessarily rich in a John Paul Getty II vein. But is he really ruthless? "I'm a huge believer in clarity," he says. "When I see something wrong, I have to deal with it. And sometimes the question is: 'Does Charlie need to go?' I've moved people but I've nearly always remained friends with them. People who aren't right in a job mostly know it.

"I don't think of myself as ruthless. But maybe I wouldn't know."

'I'll Show Them Who's Boss' starts on 7 May at 9pm on BBC2