City profiles

Cheryl Calverley

On the Eve Sleep website, they’re offering up to “50% off” mattresses. “How stingy is that,” asked Alistair Osborne in The Times. Over on the stock market, shares in the company – now run by Cheryl Calverley and up for sale – are “99% off” their 2017 listing price. Back then, Eve’s sweet dream was to “disrupt” a European sleep market valued at £26bn. It has certainly disrupted the sleep of anyone “daft enough” to invest – including “chief victim” Neil Woodford, who once owned a 42% stake. A psychology graduate who has held marketing roles at the AA, Birds Eye and Unilever, Calverley is reportedly fascinated by what makes people tick. Her latest move at Eve is a push into CBD oils. “You’d need the real stuff to sleep off this nightmare.”

Rohan Silva

Once described as “Downing Street’s wildest thinker” and a “networker extraordinaire”, Rohan Silva followed up his role as an aide to David Cameron by founding Second Home, which the FT described last year as “an upscale WeWork wannabe”. Be careful what you wish for. “Amid uncertainty over its future”, the shared office space company is now seeking either an emergency cash injection or, failing that, a buyer, said Hannah Boland in The Daily Telegraph. The company reportedly needs £6m “to stave off a collapse”, despite enjoying what it calls “a record year for demand and growth” following an “impressive bounceback” from the pandemic. Two years ago, Silva outlined his “tips for success” to GQ, including: “stay hungry” and “keep adapting”. Sound advice, no doubt.