Simon Lowth, former ScottishPower chief executive Ian Russell's right-hand man in a brutal boardroom cull at the electricity company in September 2005, has been appointed chief financial officer of global pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca.

Lowth, 46, left ScottishPower in May after the Glasgow-headquartered utility was taken over by Iberdrola of Spain.

He had remained with ScottishPower for more than a year after Russell's abrupt departure in January 2006. At that point Philip Bowman took the chief executive post and, as he did in his previous role as head of drinks giant Allied Domecq, brokered the sale of ScottishPower.

Lowth, a product of the secretive McKinsey & Company management consultancy machine, had emerged from the morning of the long knives at ScottishPower in September 2005 as the valued lieutenant of Russell.

Nicknames touted for McKinsey in its sector include the Brotherhood, the Firm and the Jesuits of Capitalism. It is famously secretive, gaining clients through a network of highly-placed contacts rather than through advertising.

Russell was coy in September 2005 when asked whether Lowth, given his McKinsey background, had been involved heavily in the board restructuring plan but he appeared to suggest his lieutenant had played a key part.

"A number of senior colleagues were heavily involved," said Russell. "I wouldn't want to pick out anyone in particular. It has very much been a team effort."

This boardroom cull saw highly-regarded ScottishPower stalwart Charles Berry axed.

David Nish, who had been tipped as a future chief executive of ScottishPower and is now finance director at Edinburgh life and pensions heavyweight Standard Life, also departed the utility in September 2005 as Russell and Lowth consolidated their positions by becoming the two remaining executive directors. Nish is now being tipped as a likely successor to Sandy Crombie as chief executive of Standard Life.

The cull at ScottishPower was instigated just before German electricity giant E.ON announced it was planning a bid for the Glasgow-based company - a bid which was rejected in November 2005 and was followed about a year later by a much higher offer from Iberdrola.

Lowth led McKinsey & Company's UK industrial practice, advising clients in the energy and utilities, manufacturing, and transport sectors, and was a director of the management consultancy before joining ScottishPower in 2003 as executive director of corporate strategy and development.

Following a sideways move of Nish from finance director to executive director responsible for infrastructure in December 2004, in a move that had been seen as preparing Nish for the chief executive post at ScottishPower, Lowth moved into an over-arching role in charge of finance and strategy in spring 2005. Lowth saw his strategy role transferred to non-board colleague Susan Reilly after Bowman's appointment - a development which narrowed his remit.

AstraZeneca said Lowth would join it on November 5 and would be responsible for "finance and information services".

Citing Lowth's experience at ScottishPower, it added: "He played a critical role in the rejection of the E.ON bid in 2005 and in the negotiation of the successful bid from Iberdrola in November 2006."

AstraZeneca highlighted its belief that Lowth's experience made him "particularly well-suited" to help it on its "change journey".

The pharmaceuticals group is cutting jobs and pursuing an aggressive strategy of acquisitions and licensing deals in a bid to replenish its pipeline of new products, following a number of late-stage drug failures in the last three years.

Lowth replaces Jon Symonds, who left AstraZeneca at the end of July to join investment bank Goldman Sachs. Paul Kenyon, a senior member of AstraZeneca's finance team, has been holding the fort meantime.

Symonds quit the UK's second-largest drug-maker after a decade, after losing out to colleague David Brennan when AstraZeneca appointed a successor to long-serving chief executive Sir Tom McKillop, now chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, in 2005.