Imagine the following scenario. As chief executive of a growth company, you have been working for months preparing a fund-raising process or sale to private equity. During the beauty parade of investors, almost all went out of their way to express…

Half the second founder-entrepreneurs we get to interview seem to start the description of their background by explaining that they didn’t thrive at school, were focused instead on sport or their social life, and so started work in mundane or improbable jobs. Recent examples of this include…