Richard Bowker CBE ^Leaders

I have had a career path that many would consider unorthodox. At school I initially studied A Level Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Economics, believing I would go on to be an Engineer. However, I discovered I was far better at Economics than Further Maths so dropped FM, focused on Economics instead and subsequently read Economics and Economic & Social History at the University of Leicester, a leading university in the UK for the Social Sciences.

My real passion had always been music so during University I spent a fair amount of time recording and performing, so much so that when I left University, I then spent 12 months or so as a full-time professional musician – travelling, recording, writing and performing. Whilst I am extremely lucky to have had the chance to fulfil that particular dream, I realised fairly early on that life as a musician was unlikely to be a viable long-term career path for me. However, I have always been interested in transportation and so joining London Underground as a graduate finance trainee in 1989 (the maths and economics certainly helped) was a logical step.

Subsequently, I have never had a defined career path in mind. I have tended to follow my instincts without a fixed view as to what was coming next. Moving from music to transport, joining Virgin after having only just set up a successful boutique finance business and then moving from Virgin where I was one of Sir Richard Branson’s senior team to go and work for the Government (albeit in a pretty senior role) are decisions that may look odd from the outside. However, they all turned out to be the right choices and I have been lucky in what I have then been able to go on and achieve at each stage of my career.