DATA EQUAT

The way he tells it, Mark Briers’ career was shaped by one pivotal moment in secondary school. He wasn’t a particularly diligent student but he vividly remembers that, at 16 years old, a teacher told him to avoid A-level maths because he’d never be a good mathematician. “I remember thinking: I’ll prove you wrong.”

He scored top marks and became a professor of statistics. Mark never interpreted his teacher’s throwaway statement as a slight, but it certainly helped him to “buckle down and focus on a topic I found naturally intuitive”.

The beginning of his career took him to farflung locations in defence and national security.