Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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Radio 4.

The The My My castaway this week is the businessman Tijan Tiam. He's chief executive of the

prudential, but don't worry, he's about as far from the archetypal man from the prue as you can get he doesn't do boring

the seeds of his success were sown amid the complex political terrain of the ivory coast

an extended family heavily involved in politics and indeed a father imprisoned

for his beliefs.

His life quickly took on an international flavor, from West Africa to Morocco, Paris to Washington.

He has soared through top flight institutions,

with a heady cocktail of crystal clear intellect,

fizzing ambition, and a healthy dash of charm.

All the more interesting, given that in his early 30s a coup in his homeland,

left him high and dry.

He says, I had no job, no career, nothing at all.

It taught me a lot about myself. If you've been in a situation where you have nothing

there's nothing much you're afraid of. Now every one of those world's most

powerful world's most intellectual lists that kick around You seem to be either at the top of it or near the top of it.

Do you feel like a powerful man?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just have to have a conversation with my children to be brought back to earth and to reality.

No, I mean, I think life is much simpler than that.

...