City profiles

Elizabeth Holmes

The trial of the founder of the medical start-up Theranos “is headed towards a dramatic finish”, said DealBook in The New York Times. Until last week, Elizabeth Holmes’s lawyers had tried to counter charges that she knowingly duped investors into believing Theranos’s blood-testing technology was effective, by portraying her as “inexperienced” and “led astray by others”, including her ex-boyfriend and business partner Sunny Balwani. Yet when she unexpectedly took the stand, Holmes “presented herself as an expert in the technology”. Ultimately the trial is “a referendum on Silicon Valley’s start-up culture”. If Holmes is found guilty, it will put other “truth-stretching founders” on notice. If acquitted, it will bolster the prevailing “fake it till you make it approach”.

Daniel Kretínsky

The billionaire wheelerdealer, who has just nabbed a 27% stake in West Ham FC, keeps his cards so close to his chest that he is known as the “Czech Sphinx”, said Jasper Jolly in The Guardian. The son of a computing professor and a senior judge, Daniel Kretínsky joined the Prague-based bank J&T in 1999, before making a fortune “snapping up leftovers from the old economy” such as coal companies, newspapers and retailers via his investment vehicle, Vesa. Interests now range from the US department store Macy’s to France’s Le Monde newspaper. Kretínsky is “not afraid to go against the tide”, says a colleague. Judging by the rip-roaring performance of his UK bets, such as J. Sainsbury and Royal Mail, he has an eye for a bargain.