For someone billed as an "extreme businessman" and who travels the world giving leadership talks I was expecting a conversation with Kevin Gaskell to be filled with glib motivational speak. That expectation was only cemented when he popped up on the Zoom screen from his Berkshire home with a framed poster that said "Dare to dream" placed prominently in view. But then he started talking and all that disappeared.
Kevin was just 32 when he walked into the UK Porsche board room expecting to be fired and walked out four hours later as the new managing director. He's not clever, he said, and when pushed he admits he doesn't really know what his skillset is exactly. And yet this is a man who turned around the fortunes of luxury global brand Porsche when it was near bankruptcy in the 1990s and who went on to change the automotive industry with a plethora of new tech companies. And if that wasn't enough he's climbed to Everest base camp, rowed across the Atlantic in record-breaking time, and walked to the South and North Poles twice.
It's not bad for a lad who was the first in his family to study at university. Now aged 63 Kevin shows no sign of slowing down – he heads up seven companies and is planning to row another ocean with his son Matt next year, crossing the Pacific this time.
