Bob Etherington

Tales out of school - nobody tells them quite like Bob Etherington, who joined Reuters in 1979 after a short spell as a London money broker and currency trader and saw the company as “a tough but fair public school”, as he told former colleagues and members of The Reuter Society. He later took charge of selling the new Dealing service, first in the UK, then in New York. Reuters then, he recalled, was notorious for enjoying itself. He once got into trouble for renting Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Caribbean for a week for a sales conference. “What a great company to work for. I had a terrific career and was very sorry when it ended” in 2001 when he was international director of sales training. Etherington now teaches sales and presentation skills to executives through his own businesses in the UK and US. ■