CV: John Hill of Toshiba

Age 51

Present job General manager of Toshiba?s newly launched electronic imaging division which sells hybrid, digital printer/photocopiers.

first job Seven years as a navigating officer in the Merchant Navy.

And then? Got married and became a landlubber. Joined Apple as national dealer manager. Headhunted by Toshiba in 1986 to head a division with no staff, selling a product with no distribution channel.

Proudest achievement? Building Toshiba?s dealer channel and taking the business from zero to #100m in five years.

Most frightening experience? Going up the Mekong river during the Vietnam war on a supertanker filled with aviation fuel and watching the US army dropping shells into the jungle around us. It was horrendous. The whole Mekong delta had been napalmed and the jungle was completely black. We had to spend hours on the jetty discharging this fuel which is dangerous enough, without shells going off everywhere.

Second most frightening experience? Watching my son being born.

Worst example of IT management? In the 1980s when companies took people on promising them the earth and then dumping them as soon as trouble hit. One of the great things about working for a Japanese company is that they just don?t do that. They believe in getting good people and training them. You end up with a loyal workforce and a great company.

Your motto? People are your most important asset.

Pet hate? I cannot abide managers who won?t employ good people because they are frightened they will end up taking their jobs or who hire people and don?t develop them. This skills shortage exists because people refuse to invest in staff.

What would you change about the IT business? I would demystify it. Until PCs are seen like TVs and as easy to use, we have all got a problem. People think that to get a job in IT you have to know about bits and bytes and ROMs, but you can know what a PC does without knowing what is inside it. You don?t have to be a car mechanic to be a racing driver.

How would you do it? Better IT curricula in schools.

Your biggest fault? I am too nice, not as pushy as I should be and I tend to trust people too much. I can make misjudgements.

What motivates you? Success, making other people successful ? status, I suppose.

Biggest mistake? Nothing really horrendous. I once trusted an employee with a large piece of work and left him to get on with it. I later found that that he had cost the company large sums of money ? not misappropriated it, but spent it in the wrong direction.

Hobbies Sailing, watching motor racing and gardening. I once had 180 kinds of Fuschia in my greenhouse.

How will offices change in the next five years? Printers will be swapped for digital photocopiers which have integrated scanners. Photocopiers are twice as cheap to run and within six months we will be able to hook them up into a network.

What would you like to do if you weren?t working for Toshiba? Bum around the world on a yacht.