Peter Cary & Mai Tejapaibul

To those in-the-know, Gordon Hurst is a titan of industry.

When he joined the small computer services and professional outsourcing company Capita in 1988, the firm had a team of 45 people and a turnover of £2m per year. Fast-forward 27 years and Gordon was still the Group Chief Financial Officer, but Capita was now operating as a FTSE 100 company, with a staff of around 70,000 and a market cap of about £8Bn.

That remarkable story is part of what makes Gordon so beguiling as a leader – but he didn't stop there. In the years since stepping back from his life at Capita, he's remained a trusted adviser and Chairman to a host of other innovative firms, from financial crime prevention experts Featurespace, to the AI-powered cybersecurity giant Darktrace.

Now the Chairman of Cadro, Gordon discusses his time coming up through the industry, the importance of great people, how he keeps engaged after a lifetime of challenges, and what makes a good business anyway.

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