The questionnaire
What really ‘moves’ today’s business movers and shakers? Do they all relax in the same way? Do they share common tastes in music, sport and literature and do they have any maverick passions? We’ve taken a closer look at the lives of the UK’s leading business innovators to find out the secrets of their success.
- Name: Kalaish Suri, managing director Reel Cinema
- Education: BSC in mechanical engineering
- First job: in the UK picking strawberries, in India to design and bicycle
- Best part of what you do: meet very successful people
- Relaxation: walking and swimming
- Latest passion: to write a book or make a movie
- Secret of your success: discipline and dedication.
- Name: Andy Walters, managing director, Quartix
- Education - Clare College, Cambridge. Read engineering and electric sciences
- First Job: A design engineer for Plessey
- Best part of what you do: the marketing and coming up with new marketing plans
- Relaxation: rowing, tennis and running
- Latest passion: more rowing!
- Secret of your success: being single minded about what we do and the goals we set ourselves.
- Name: Clare Thommen, joint director, Boudiche
- Education: Royal High School, Edinburgh
- First job: Pizza Hut waitress
- Best part of what you do: Buying trip to Paris and New York
- Relaxation: Going to a spa and locking myself away from the world
- Latest passion: A book called 'Lovemarks'
- Secret of your success: Being determined and believing in what you do and not giving up - being stubborn.
- Name: Sally Preston, managing director and founder of Babylicious
- Education: Southbank University, Food Science BSc degree
- First job: Food technologist for Marks & Spencer as a graduate
- Best part of what you do: Two things – feedback from consumers makes life worth it and secondly, the flexibility of being able to combine running a business with life – my role as a mother
- Relaxation: Socialising with family and friends
- Latest passion: Interior designing my home – the floor of my downstairs toilet!
- Secret of your success: Never giving in.
- Name: Christina Domecq, co-founder and CEO, SpinVox
- Education: Convent school in Spain and the US then a Masters in Finance from Notre Dame University, a BA in Systematic Theology and a BSc in Economics from Boston College.
- First job: My first business in technology-based services in New York, aged 20.
- Best part of what you do: Working with really talented and driven people at SpinVox.
- Relaxation: Mountaineering, skiing, sailing, kite-surfing, flying helicopters and paragliding.
- Latest passion: Building SpinVox into a global success story but outside work, cycling is a real passion at the moment.
- Secret of your success: My philosophy is that everyone is at their best when driven, and I encourage all my team to amaze themselves.
