The leading lights of our industry find many different ways of relaxing after they close the office door, though some admit to finding it hard.
Family time is the favoured method of relaxing out of hours for around a third of our high achievers, many of whom have young families. This often involves doing sporting and other recreational
activities together.
Sport predictably dominates the list, with golf claiming top spot, although few admit any great proficiency at the game. “I play golf, not always well,” says Simon Willoughby. Lillian Boyle goes further: “To relax I play golf – badly.”
There are plenty of walkers among the IA100 and football also features prominently, with several volunteering the names of their favourite clubs. These do not include the big names you might expect. Bristol City, Grimsby Town, Luton Town and Wolves, although the latter is currently a Premier League club, all get a mention. Ariel Amigo of Investors Trust adds
an exotic touch with his support of the leading Argentinian side River Plate, although he admits watching them is not always relaxing.
There are plenty of rugby fans, too, including Stuart Yeomans, chief executive officer (CEO) of Farringdon Asset Management, who will have just returned from the Rugby World Cup in Japan by the time this comes out. Cycling is popular, with several competing regularly. The prize for self-depreciation among our cyclists must go to Sam Instone, who describes himself as “a keen middle-aged man in Lycra”.
Personal challenges
Like many in the IA 100, Sam finds time to raise money for charity. There are some fantastic achievements in this field, including Yeomans, who ran 21 half marathons and one marathon last
year, raising £30,000, and Tom Tracy, CEO of Forth Capital who completed a very personal challenge. “I recently turned 50 and decided to cycle 1,969km (the year of my birth) over 50 consecutive days. The funds raised were donated to Social Bite, a charity based in Scotland that is helping in the fight to eradicate homelessness across the globe,” he says.
While one or two of our influencers confess the time they spend travelling for work makes them homebirds during their leisure time, plenty of them do have the travel bug. It seems to be something that is hard to shake off if Michelle Andrews, chief marketing oficer of Quilter is anything to go by.
“Since significantly reducing my work travel I’ve fallen in love with visiting new places again,” she says. Among the most ambitious hobbies is that of
Caroline Naylor-Renn, chief operating officer of INN8, who says she relaxes by “savouring the wine from the 650 vineyards around Cape Town”. That is a lot of wine. Richard Rogers of the Dominion Group confesses he is an ageing lover of music festivals. “I really enjoy pushing up the average age by going to concerts and festivals. Glastonbury is always a highlight!” Perhaps
he might bump into QB’s David White, another avid festival-goer.
Diversity and distraction
There’s always one who will admit to finding relaxation a tricky concept, and Old Mutual’s David Denton comes straight to the point. “Relaxation is overrated,” he declares, although he does confess to finding time for running and racket sports.
William Mason makes a pitch for the sympathy vote, asking: “Does a regulator ever have time away from work?” Apparently he has found a few things to distract him from his work: “Watching trees grow, cutting wood and animal husbandry spring to mind.”
With model railways, ancestral research, doing a PhD (Chris Divito) and hurling getting a look in, there is plenty of diversity. Perhaps the prize for the oddest choice should go the Prudential managing director Chris Leahy. He says: “Having grown up on a farm I retain a keen interest in all things agricultural and like nothing better than to relax of an evening reading my copy of the Farmers Journal.”
