 From 1950 to 1965, he was a director of Lazard Brothers & Co, a London merchant bank in which Pearsons owned an 80 per cent of the stock, and was its chairman from 1965 to 1973.He also became a member of the board of Fiat, in Turin, in 1972.Poole married Betty Margaret, daughter of Captain Dugald Stewart Gilkison, on 6 September 1933.