New Appointments to the Rolls-Royce Board

18, September 2003

                   NEW APPOINTMENTS TO THE ROLLS-ROYCE BOARD                   

Rolls-Royce has appointed three new non-executive directors. Amy L Bondurant,
Carl-Peter Forster and Ian Strachan will join the Rolls-Royce Group plc Board
with effect from 19th September 2003.

Amy Bondurant was US Ambassador to the OECD from 1997 to 2001. Prior to this
her career spanned more than 20 years in US Government and private legal
practice, including 12 years' service in the United States Senate, departing in
1987 as Senior Counsel to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and
Transportation.

Carl-Peter Forster has been Chairman and Chief Executive of General Motors'
German subsidiary, Adam Opel AG, since 2001. Prior to joining Opel he was a
member of the Board of Management for BMW AG.

Ian Strachan has spent most of his career in senior management positions with
large international companies. He served as Deputy Chief Executive of RTZ and
as Chief Executive of BTR in the 1990s and is now non-executive Chairman of
Instinet Group Inc, as well as serving on the Boards of several major UK and US
companies.

Commenting on the appointments, Rolls-Royce's Chairman, Euan Baird, said "These
appointments will further strengthen the Rolls-Royce Board. Amy will bring
extensive knowledge of US and international regulatory issues and Carl-Peter's
global engineering and technical background is of great relevance to our
business. Ian has invaluable operating experience at the highest level of a
number of global industrial enterprises. Their combined depth and diversity of
experience will be invaluable as the company moves forward."

Biographies of Amy Bondurant, Carl-Peter Forster and Ian Strachan are attached.

For further information contact:

Colin Duncan, Director of Corporate Communications

Tel: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

Website: www.rolls-royce.com

Biography - Amy L Bondurant

Amy Bondurant is currently Managing Director and Partner at Bozman Partners, a
private investment fund with offices in Paris and Washington. Prior to joining
Bozman, she was US Ambassador to the OECD from 1997 to 2001 where her work
included policy programmes on corporate governance, competition and sustainable
development.

Amy Bondurant graduated with a Juris Doctorate from American University's
Washington College of Law in 1978 and a BA in Law from the University of
Kentucky in 1979.

Between 1975 and 1987 she worked on Capitol Hill capping her tenure as Senior
Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and
Transportation and to the Consumer subcommittee.

In 1987 she moved into private practice with the Washington law firm Verner,
Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand where she is a senior partner
(shareholder) and became the first female Board member of the 150 person law
practice. She left private practice in 1997 to take up her OECD duties.

During her time in private law practice, Amy Bondurant also chaired the
Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee which provides industry
commentary to the US Department of Transportation.

Amy is currently a Board member of the American Hospital in Paris and a Member
of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Council of American Ambassadors.

Born in 1951, she is married with one son and lives in Washington DC. Her
hobbies include swimming and cycle riding.

Biography - Carl-Peter Forster

Carl-Peter Forster became Chairman and Chief Executive of Adam Opel AG in 2001.
The wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors has sales of around £11 billion
and makes passenger cars, sports utility vehicles, commercial vehicles and
spare parts. During his time at Opel he has put in place a transformation plan
which has already resulted in substantial productivity and quality
improvements.

Carl-Peter Forster completed his education in 1982 with a degree in
Aeronautical Engineering and an MA in Economics from Rheinische
Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität in Bonn. On leaving university he joined McKinsey
and Co Inc as a consultant before joining BMW as a General Manager in 1986. A
number of senior engineering management jobs followed before he became the
Managing Director of BMW South Africa in 1996. In 1999 he was appointed to the
Board of Management of BMW AG as Head of Manufacturing responsible for
worldwide manufacturing in all of the company's plants.

He also serves as Chairman on both the supervisory boards of the Germany based
ASIC manufacturer, ZMD AG, and the Austria based private equity company, Lead
Equities AG.

Born in 1954, Carl-Peter is married with three children. His hobbies include
sailing and skiing as well as vintage cars.

Biography - Ian Strachan

Having spent most of his career in senior management positions with large
international companies, Ian Strachan is now serving as a non-executive
director on the Boards of a number of major companies in the UK and the United
States.

He graduated from Christ's College Cambridge in 1965 and then went on to study
politics at Princeton and Harvard Universities. In 1970 he joined the Exxon
Corporation where he held a number of senior management positions in Japan,
Hong Kong and the USA where he became the Head of Corporate Strategy. In 1987
he joined RTZ Corporation Plc (now Rio Tinto Plc) as Finance Director, becoming
Deputy Chief Executive of the company in 1991.

In 1996 he was appointed Chief Executive of BTR Plc. He became Deputy Chairman
of Invensys Plc when the company was created out of the merger of BTR and Siebe
in 1999.

Since 2000 Ian Strachan has been a non-executive director with Reuters plc, and
with the offshore drilling contractor, Transocean Inc. In 2002 he joined the
Boards of industrial conglomerate, Johnson Matthey plc, and mining company,
Xstrata plc. In 2003 he became non-executive Chairman of the electronic
brokerage company Instinet Group Inc.

Ian Strachan is 60 years old and is married with three grown-up children. He
lives in London.