Richard Farleigh: from maths boffin to dragon

Richard Farleigh – best known for his stint in the BBC show Dragons' Den – used his talent for maths to make his first million working for a bank's derivatives team.

"After university I was offered a scholarship to study a PhD in maths and economics at Princeton. It was a flattering offer, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life calculating a co-efficient in a massive equation." So he took up an offer to join Bankers Trust of Australia "the most profitable bank in the world at the time". Coming from a pretty modest background he was brought up in foster care after falling ill living with his traveller family in the outback "I was eager to prove myself and earn some money".

Farleigh struggled with banking initially, but then had a lucky break when he was put in the newly formed derivatives team. "I found that my maths helped me price risk. Back then, computers were much less common, so being able to work out complex calculations gave me a competitive edge over a lot of my rivals." Ten years later Farleigh left to take up "a very lucrative" post managing a fund for wealthy individuals in Bermuda. Then, "at the top of the hedge-fund business", Farleigh quit. "I was 34, I had enough money to be comfortable so I thought I may as well enjoy life."

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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.