Tony Killeen: A military approach to business success

Tony Killeen, founder of Allpay, believes the time he spent in the armed forces provided him with the discipline to run his own business.

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Tony Killeen, Allpay

Business ideas often come from wanting to overcome frustrating situations. Tony Killeen's moment of inspiration came from the frustration he experienced while working for Hereford council. Involved with the collection of rents from council tenants, he saw first hand the problems of the paper-based system. In his view, forcing people to spend time queuing at the council office with their giro books to pay their rent was "cumbersome and expensive". Automating the process would make it much quicker and convenient. More importantly, it would also benefit the councils, since it would cut down non-payment of rent and reduce the number of backroom staff needed.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

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