Dr Kenneth Lyall

Dr Kenneth Lyall, who has died age 64, after a year-long battle against cancer, was an economist and fund manager and the first employee taken on by Walter Scott & Partners Limited, the first Scottish "boutique" fund managers to specialise in global fund management for US institutions. He was also a trustee of the David Hume Institute, which sets out to stimulate and influence thinking in key public policy areas with a focus on economic issues.

He joined Walter Scott soon after the firm was founded in 1983 by Walter Scott, Ian Clark and Marilyn Harrison; almost a quarter of a century later, in 2007, he was appointed the firm's chairman. "I had reached the age of 60," the kilt-wearing Dr Scott told the financial journalist Ian Fraser a year later, "and thought it was time for Ken to have a crack at being chairman."

Although in some circles described as a lower-key figure than the company's founder, Dr Lyall's knowledge, expertise and principles were undoubtedly proven by the firm, continuing to bring its clients significant returns three decades after its founding. And, given Dr Lyall's own successful career within the company, it is surely no surprise that Walter Scott & Partners continues to trade on its reputation for very low staff turnover and significant in-house training, developing and mentoring of its own investment team.

Schooled at George Watson's College in Edinburgh, Dr Lyall went on to study at the University of Edinburgh, where he gained an MA in economics and economic history in 1971. His first experience of real-world finance came when he joined Arthur Andersen & Co, and worked for the company in its London and Glasgow offices until 1976 (departing long before its fall from grace after the Enron scandal).

The following year he returned to the Scottish capital and the University of Edinburgh to undertake a PhD in financial economics, which he successfully completed in 1982. It was soon after this he was first employed by Walter Scott, and through the longevity of his time with the firm he would help ensure its founding principles – of integrity, honesty and decency, of "doing the right thing" for its clients – were maintained as the firm grew in terms of personnel and scale.

Dr Lyall's interests outside of the office were many and varied; he was a keen marksman and, for many years, an accomplished cross-country skier in Europe and America. Over his life he was involved with Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt universities, the British Council, Rural Scotland and Edinburgh World Heritage, and he much enjoyed the arts, especially opera. In more recent years he had become increasingly focused on the issues facing farming and forestry in the Scottish Borders, most specifically as the owner, with his wife, of a 935-hectare mixed hill farm in the region.

He married Professor D Jane Bower FRSE in 1989, an academic who is vice-convenor for the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland and, among other posts, a former Professor of Enterprise Management at the University of Dundee.

Dr Lyall's financial and economic expertise was nevertheless much in demand, not least during his eight years as a trustee of the David Hume Institute, whose mission is to "stimulate and influence thinking in key public policy areas with a focus on economic issues which includes the interaction between economy and the law".

The institute's director, Jeremy Peat, described Dr Lyall as a man who was always interested in evidence-based analysis and the consideration of the wider issues.

"He was a man of great intellect, and great interest, who really always contributed substantially to any discussions," he said, "sometimes with a nice wicked glint in his eye. He contributed in ways that stirred up the discussion. He was a thoroughly nice man, very bright, a very good economist with a very broad palate; he looked across the world, he looked across a broad set of issues. He added significantly to any debate.

"He was one of those people who related the economy to the markets, which is quite a significant skill; to be able to think through where people should be putting their money in the context of his views of where the economy and society were moving. That, I think, was his particular interest. Given he had a remarkable client base at Walter Scott, and they were immensely successful, he always had an international perspective, relating international developments to market developments and drawing upon that to advise their very high-quality customers."

He is survived by his wife and her children from her previous marriage.