Chairman of the Board
Chairman
d r a o B e h of t Giles Clarke was born in Bristol and began his career as an investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston. His first taste of entrepreneurial success came as Chairman of Majestic Wine Warehouse, which he built into a national chain. It sold for £15 million in 1989. But that was just the start of an incredibly interesting story from an equally interesting man. Lansdown Place Magazine caught up with Giles to discuss business, the economy... and a little cricket, too. You began your career as an investment banker. Was that a conscious choice at the time or did it just seem like the right career move? I was interested in doing it when I met a guy in Tehran during my third year at Oxford, who was an investment banker. It looked interesting and he was clearly enjoying himself. You’re rumoured to have gambled at Oxford to cover your tuition. Did you have a favourite game? Backgammon. What spurred you to buy Majestic Wine – it was in receivership at the time, so you obviously had a plan for the organisation? I was sitting at my desk at CSFB, it was in the for sale ads in the FT and I wanted to avoid having lunch with one of my colleagues, so I said I was going to have a look at this business. I went off and had a look at it, and then a couple of us bought it. You founded Pet City in 1990 – quite a change from Chairing the English Cricket board and Majestic Wine – what are the criteria on which you pursue a business venture? Well don’t forget the cricket is an unpaid job and it’s my obsession, so to be able to chair the national board,
Financial Advice: Independent & Impartial
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particularly to run the sport – particularly when you have the opportunity to give the sport the economics so it can hire the best people and the best people can turn the team into the best team in the world – it’s fantastic. All the other things I do are business, but the ECB is something I was elected to. All the businesses I have done were because I saw specific opportunities in sectors that weren’t being covered. I was always interested in competing with the supermarkets, in niche retail, because retail was very strong. These days retail is struggling desperately, the only interest I have in retail is coffee bars. Is there a particular moment in your career when you realise you’re a successful entrepreneur and business leader? I don’t think it’s like that when you own and run a business: they are your passion and obsession, and you don’t do much else. If a company doesn’t have somebody who is passionate and obsessed about it, it will not be successful. There are many companies now operating under ‘Westleigh Investments’. How involved are you with each on a day to day basis? I have a CEO of Westleigh, who runs the business. I’m a non-executive proprietor; I simply don’t have time to run any business because I have so many different interests. Apart from English Cricket, I’m also on the world governing
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