People

AstraZeneca’s boss Pascal Soriot was winning plaudits for his stewardship when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Since then, he’s been having a hard time …

“Model entrepreneur” Wang Fengyou's ant-farming Ponzi scheme pulled in $1.2bn, with investors losing all.

Merck Mercuriadis has been spending millions snapping up the rights to hit songs and turning them into an income stream for investors. Can the good ti…

Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, has always displayed a talent not just for rhyme, but for making money too – he was hip-hop’s first billionaire. He hasn’t lo…

Despite the digital revolution, piling it high and selling it cheap on the high street remains a profitable strategy. Ask Tom Morris and family, now w…

Jeff Carpoff's plan to make money from renting out solar-powered generators quickly turned into a Ponzi scheme.

As 20-somethings, Ian and Richard Livingstone began snapping up cheap London property. Their knack for spotting promising but underrated assets has se…

The performance of Helmut Kiener’s fund of funds, which invested money from institutions and private investors into hedge funds, seemed too good to be…

Cathie Wood has quietly built a reputation for picking the unloved and misunderstood stocks that go on to thrive. She has just launched a new ETF that…

Andy Jassy is taking over from departing CEO Jeff Bezos at the world’s largest online retailer. Will he be able to fill the founder’s shoes? Jane Lewi…

Manfred Schmider massaged the sales figures at FlowTex, his utility technology company, and used investors’ money to buy villas around the world, a fl…

The success of Britain’s vaccine strategy is largely down to one woman – Kate Bingham, a biotech expert for a venture-capital firm. It’s not the first…

Malaysian entrepreneur Stanley Thai first spotted an opportunity in latex in 1987. He made his first million by the age of 29, and booming demand than…

Oil man S.C. Lewis and his henchman Jacob Berman issued unauthorised shares in their Californian oil company, defrauding many of Los Angeles' most pro…

Serial fraudster Elizabeth Bigley AKA, the “psychic” Madame Lydia DeVere, conned people into believing she was the long lost daughter of fabulously we…

Peter Cowgill became the accountant for a small sports shop in the Pennines in the early 1980s. Now, JD Sports is one of the most formidable forces on…

Christopher Columbus Wilson gave radios away to drum up business in his United Wireless Telegraph Company. The company went bankrupt and Wilson was co…

Elon Musk, the electric-car and space-travel pioneer who wants to move to Mars is now the world’s richest man. If he seems delusional, that’s all part…

Philip Arnold and his cousin John Slack lured investors into their mining company by claiming to have discovered large deposit of diamonds. There were…

Adar Poonawalla, the chief of the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer by volume, has an ambitious plan to rescue us all from Covid-19. The future for…

Great leaders thrive in the midst of turmoil and upheaval, as we have seen this year. Four of the great movers and shakers of 2020 stood out for us.

Tom Saunders looks at how three very different women – Shahrzad Rafati, Trinny Woodall and Anne Boden –  have grown successful businesses.

Kweku Adoboli's risky trading and his desperate attempts to cover it up wiped £2.7bn off UBS’s market capitalisation.

Janet Yellen, the former US central-bank chief is back, this time as US Treasury secretary. Donald Trump wondered whether she was too short for the jo…