SIR MIKE RAKE’S PROGRESS

Age: 68

Family: Married to Caroline, with four grown-up sons and five stepchildren. ‘That’s why I’m still working.’

Education: Wellington College in Berkshire, as an armed services boarder.

Favourite book: War and Peace.

Favourite film: The

Godfather Favourite gadget: iPad Best advice ever

received: Not to leave KPMG for what seemed an attractive offer at the wrong time.

Hobbies: ‘I like tennis and skiing. I hate golf with a passion, though. I used to play polo but I stopped seven years ago. I do yoga, the instructor comes to my flat at 7.30 every Wednesday morning but I don’t know what type of yoga it is. I also have a Fitbit.’

Working week: He has a flat in London where he lives Monday to Friday and a house in the country near Henley-on-Thames where he goes at the weekend. Mondays typically kick off with a 5am start but a typical non-yoga day is rising at 7.45, having breakfast with business contacts, then meetings. If Rake breakfasts at home he has a hard boiled egg and a cup of green tea, and he tries to avoid lavish lunches, preferring a bowl of soup. He is out at dinners and social events almost every evening. ‘It is quite tiring but you get used to it,’ he says.

Career: Trained as a chartered accountant, joining KPMG in 1974, working first in continental Europe then in the Middle East. Returned to London in 1989 and became senior partner in the UK in 1998 and international chairman in 2002. Became chairman of BT in 2007. He also chairs payments firm Worldpay and is a director of McGraw-Hill Financial. He was President of the CBI from 2013 to 2015; a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group from 2010-2015; non-executive director of Barclays from 2008, becoming Deputy Chairman from 20122015 and Chairman of easyJet from 2010-2013.