Arriving out of breath, in a sweat and almost an hour late, Andreas Utermann assumed he had blown his job interview at Mercury Asset Management in 1989 before it had started. Fortunately for him the firm was cast from a different mould from almost every other company in the City of London. He was offered a job.

Utermann is now chief investment officer of Allianz Global Investors, arguably Europe's largest asset manager. He said: "I was stuck on the Central Line [of the London underground] for 45 minutes, the train was going nowhere, and it was very warm. When it arrived at the station I just ran. But when I got to the interview, it didn't matter. It was all about them meeting me."