Job: Chief operating officer, Publicis Worldwide
- You've got five hours left before the world explodes. What do you do?
Catch the easyJet flight to Venice with my girlfriend and take a water taxi to Piazza San Marco. "See Venice and die," as the Danes say.
- What's your best joke?
I've found the English don't laugh at French jokes.
- What's your biggest fear?
Quantitative easing.
- When did you last cry and why?
When I recently learned I was going to be a dad for the first time.
- Who is your hero?
Jack Welch: still the standard bearer for business management, people motivation and clarity of decision-making.
- Name one thing about yourself that few people know.
I was a freelance motoring journalist on the same publication in the mid-80s as a bloke called Jeremy Clarkson.
- What's the worst thing about your job?
To no longer be selling storyboards. I loved the base art of the persuasion of a 25-year-old and a piece of cardboard in front of a suspicious audience.
- What do you see when you look in the mirror?
My dad.
- With which historical figure do you most identify with and why?
Napoleon. Anyone who has driven the fabulous Route Napoleon from Golfe Juan to Grenoble can see he was thinking centuries ahead when he made his famous journey.
- If you had a trained monkey, what would you make it do?
Go to the gym on my behalf.
- If your office was burning down, what object would you save and why?
When this happened to Maurice Levy at Publicis in 1971, and he was head of IT, he saved the data storage tapes so the company could continue to run. He was made chief executive a short time later. Probably a clue in that somewhere.
- Are you happy?
If the glass is always half-full, you never get to enjoy drinking all of it.