Few bankers would include the fact that they were once a scout on their CV, "as a joke". But Peter Luthy is not, perhaps, an ordinary banker. A fit-looking and apparently easy-going 46, he gives off a convincing sense of having squeezed the most out of life. He spent two years in his early 20s working as an idealistic carpenter in New Jersey and another two in his late 30s as a wealthy non-worker, travelling the world with his milliner wife Candace and skiing wherever the opportunity arose - 100 days a year.
Now he's back where he says he's happiest of all. "I realized that everything else is boring compared to this industry. This is by far the most exciting thing you can do."
So that he never feels isolated from the buzz, he has had his office door at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (DKB) removed, and jammed the levers on his privacy blind so that he cannot close it. "People want to talk. They want to feel they're being listened to. Most of the time it's business related, but you don't limit people." He likes the open door, but he hates meetings.