Profiles

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…

Robert Schuyler was known as “America’s first railroad king” issued millions of dollars' worth of fraudulent shares in his company, and kept the money…

Boardroom battles, bribery convictions, feuds, kidnapping – the Kwoks’ Hong Kong property empire has seen the lot. But for all the drama, they have te…

Stockbroker Michael Meehan manipulated the markets, driving stock prices up and making a mint.

Philip Green’s empire has collapsed, taking great chunks of the high street with it. In the Noughties his Topshop chain was called Britain’s favourite…

Meyer Blinder’s brokerage firm cold-called unsuspecting punters and pumped shares in fraudulent shell companies while stiffing them with huge commiss…

Dolly Parton, the warm-hearted chanteuse from Tennessee, blends old-fashioned etiquette with openness and is loved by millions. She also has a very sh…

When the Royal British Bank fell on hard times, founder John MacGregor started falsifying the accounts and paying dividends out of capital. The bank f…

Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci are an unassuming Turkish-German couple who had already made their fortune as biotech entrepreneurs when a strange new vi…

Eton-educated William Snow, AKA William Strahan, inherited a huge fortune and joined the family bank. On the face of it he was a pillar of respectable…