Frits Philips, the former head of Royal Philips Electronics who died on Monday at the age of 100, not only played a key part in turning the Dutch-based group into Europe's biggest producer of consumer electronics but also gave industry a social face.

A deeply religious man, he helped save the lives of hundreds of Dutch Jews during the second world war after the Nazis forced him to open a factory in a concentration camp near the group's main headquarters at Eindhoven. In a Schindler-style operation, 382 out of the 469 Jewish workers there survived. Later Frits Philips was awarded the Yad Vashem medal by Israel.

Reared in the electric lamp business started by his uncle, Gerard, in 1891, he was always committed to his workforce. "After the depression of the thirties, I determined that in the rest of my industrial life I would do everything within my power to avoid a recurrence of that kind of misery, " he said. After the war, he made labour relations a priority and helped set up an industrial framework for the Netherlands that ensured it suffered fewer strikes than France or Germany.

As chief executive of Philips from 1961 to 1971, he presided over a period of expansion that saw the company expand into Asia and the Americas and introduce technological innovations such as the audio cassette. Manufacturing companies were established in Taiwan and the group joined forces with Matsushita to set up a cathode-ray tube factory in Japan.

Tall and soft spoken, Philips believed business development must be organic. "Plants and machinery any fool can buy," he once said. "But an organisation must be grown like a tree." He had some 40 years to grow the Philips group.

Frederik Jacques Philips was born in 1905 in Eindhoven where his father, Anton, had helped found the company. After studying mechanical engineering at Delft Technical University, he completed his military service before joining the company in 1930.

During these early years he took up flying, which became a lifelong passion. He also married Sylvia van Lennep, who died in 1992. They had three sons and four daughters. The couple shared an interest in moral re-armament, a cause with Christian roots that encourages members to take an active interest in social and political issues.

In 1939, on the retirement of his father, Philips became managing director. When Germany invaded the Netherlands, all the Philips directors went to the US - except Frits and his wife, who opted to stay with their workforce. "We felt a great certainty that we were meant to stay in Holland," he said later. "With the Hague chaotic around us, as we sat on the edge of the bed, God said to us: 'You are chosen to bear this responsibility.'"

Although he was forced to set up a plant in a concentration camp, Philips tried in other ways to avoid helping the German war effort - a task involving sabotage, bluff and empty promises. Following a spontaneous strike by Philips workers, he was imprisoned for five months.

Frits Philips remained active into extreme old age. In 1985, he helped to found the Caux Round Table, a group of industrialists from Europe, Japan and America who meet to promote mutual understanding and encourage responsible entrepreneurship.