Vernon Hill: Free lollipops and no bulletproof windows

After making his fortune in American banking, Vernon Hill has brought his skills to the UK, opening Britain's newest high-street bank for 100 years.

Vernon Hill didn't want a conventional job after he finished at university. So he turned to real estate and began helping McDonald's, then a relatively small firm, develop new sites. In 1968, Hill set up a real-estate company specifically to help McDonald's, and ended up driving round America with Ray Kroc, the man who had bought the company for $2.7m and would turn it into a multi-million dollar business.

This taught him a lot about the importance of delivering the same service and maintaining standards across branches and the importance of picking the right sites for new branches. As McDonald's grew, Hill's business boomed. But by 1973, he wanted something new.

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.