Celebrity fame academy

22 March 2007

Why are we always looking for our entrepreneurs to be celebrity superstars? Conferences and media articles are constantly asking where the next Sir Chris Gent or Sir Stelios is coming from. But why should we care?

Some years ago, I was editing the onboard newsletter for a business conference hosted on a cruise ship, and I ended up at a dinner sitting next to (the now Sir) Robin Saxby, founder and recently retired chairman of ARM. Back then, ARM was something of a young upstart, nowhere near the company that today supplies the embedded microprocessors used in most of our phones. But Saxby had some pretty revolutionary designs and a great business model that would see the company license its IP to third-party chip manufacturers.

What struck you about him then, on the cusp of the big time and already very much in demand, was how grounded he was. An engineer by background, he loved the technology his company was developing and was operationally hands-on. And what did he do on his retirement from ARM? Buy a football club? No, he became president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Contrast that with someone like Simon Woodroffe, who's so busy at conferences and TV shows giving the benefit of his 'Yo!How' that you sometimes wonder how he has time to run any of his companies, never mind found new ones like the recently opened Yotels.

Now we're not saying PR and image isn't important - and Simon is certainly an entertaining speaker. It's just that he and a handful of other entrepreneurs like him are rare, in that they combine media savvy and a talent for public speaking with great ideas and strong operational execution. Some of us only have one of those qualities, maybe two - it's not often that all three get rolled into one.

You don't need this combination to make it, of course. If you've got a great idea and you're an executer with a strong business, you've got as good a chance as anyone. And if you're a loudmouth who loves the oxygen of publicity, just make sure you've got someone working with you to get the day-to-day work done.

By David Longworth