Latest articles by Jane Lewis
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Bernard Tapie: the man with a thousand livesProfiles Bernard Tapie, who has died aged 78, was a colourful French entrepreneur, star of screen and stage, politician, sports icon, press baron and convicted felon. It was a roller-coaster life.
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Xu Jiayin: the tycoon behind EvergrandeProfiles Xu Jiayin became a wheeler-dealer in China’s muddled transition to capitalism and his connections helped him to enormous riches. Now, he seems to have run out of luck… and friends in high places.
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Clive Sinclair: the father of the home computerProfiles Clive Sinclair was a serial inventor and visionary whose output also included the prototype electric car. His other interests included poetry, marathon-running and poker.
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Iris Apfel: an inspiration to young fashionistasProfiles Iris Apfel made her name as a high-society interior designer before a show at the New York Met turned her into a fashion influencer. At 100 years old, she’s still going strong.
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Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski: fintech innovator gunning for the banksProfiles Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s Klarna app allows customers to buy now, pay later, without racking up interest charges. He’s excited about the future. Regulators are nervous.
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Pedro Castillo: leftist outsider who rode to power in PeruProfiles Pedro Castillo amassed support among the left-behind as a trade-union leader before riding to power in this year’s presidential race. What has the country let itself in for?
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Gabe Plotkin and the online mob’s unfinished businessProfiles A social-media pile-on nearly wiped out hedge funder Gabe Plotkin back in January. The fight is not over yet.
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Nigel Rudd: Sir Sell-out’s latest offer may be his lastProfiles An industry joke has it that Nigel Rudd’s businesses are always a buy because he’ll soon be selling up. His latest deal is likely to be his swansong.
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Reese Witherspoon: the dork who became a media mogulProfiles A decade ago, Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon was in the “romcom doldrums”. Now she’s a one-woman conglomerate with a production company and a book club at its core.
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Austin Russell: the university drop-out who made a billion dollarsProfiles Halfway through his first year as a physics student, Austin Russell won a $100,000 prize designed to encourage young entrepreneurs. A decade later, he is the world’s youngest billionaire. Jane Lewis reports
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George Iacobescu: the man who transformed LondonProfiles George Iacobescu, the man who – quite literally – put Canary Wharf on the map, is stepping back from his executive role. He will be a tough act to follow, says Jane Lewis
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José Neves: the Buddhist transforming luxury fashionProfiles José Neves cornered the market in building bespoke websites and apps for boutique fashion brands and retailers. That put him in a sweet spot when the pandemic arrived.
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The story of Wise, a multi-billion fintech started by accidentProfiles If you grow up in a situation where a whole country has to be made from scratch, creating a game-changing financial technology start-up such as Wise doesn’t seem so outlandish.
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Wes Edens: the raider who snapped up MorrisonsProfiles Wes Edens is already well known in Birmingham for rescuing the city’s Aston Villa football club from disaster. Can he pull a similar trick with a flagging supermarket chain?
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John McAfee: the tech maverick who lost a $100m fortuneProfiles John McAfee made his name pioneering software to protect against computer viruses. He lost nearly everything in the financial crash and lived a life on the run, killing himself to thwart the US authorities.
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Ken Goldin: making a million from a child’s hobbyProfiles Ken Goldin’s career began when, aged 12, he swapped his toy cars for a baseball-card collection. He turned the hobby into a multimillion-dollar business – and now the market is going wild.
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Patrick Drahi’s audacious raid on BTProfiles Patrick Drahi, the Israeli-French billionaire, has stealthily become the biggest shareholder in the British telecoms firm, seeking to unleash its true value. But his record might well make BT nervous.
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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang: prophet of the AI ageProfiles Jensen Huang’s Nvidia started out in computer games. That may have been merely a toehold on the route to global dominance in the tech industry.
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Strive Masiyiwa: the philanthropist who connected AfricaProfiles Strive Masiyiwa made his fortune bringing the mobile phone to the masses in Africa. Now he’s the first black billionaire to join the ranks of The Sunday Times’ Rich List.
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Chamath Palihapitiya: the social savant leading the Spac revolutionProfiles Chamath Palihapitiya is credited with sparking the current market mania for Spacs and mob investing. He says his aim is to bring down the establishment from within.
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Harley Finkelstein’s Shopify: the “Amazon for entrepreneurs”Profiles Shopify started as a snowboard shop that baulked at gifting its customers to Amazon. Now,it is an essential part of the internet’s infrastructure. Harley Finkelstein, the firm’s driving force, is aiming higher.
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Anthony Tan: the Malaysian business scion taking on UberProfiles Anthony Tan has always been unabashedly ambitious and, in taxi-hailing apps, saw his chance to get into the history books. The competition, though, may be about to hot up.
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António Horta-Osório: the tennis ace who saved Lloyds BankProfiles António Horta-Osório was determined to rescue Britain’s largest high-street bank from disaster, and he succeeded, if at the cost of his own health. Can he repeat the trick at stricken Credit Suisse?
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Cazoo’s Alex Chesterman: “I’m not an innovator, just a copycat”Profiles Serial entrepreneur Alex Chesterman likes to improve the consumer experience by spotting what’s broken, then fixing it. That’s been a successful strategy, but is he about to call it a day?
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