Tidjane Thiam: Pru tough guy has the charm to win through

By Dominic Midgley Published: 6:15AM GMT 02 March 2010

Tidjane Thiam: Pru difficult man has the appeal to win by Photo: BLOOMBERG

It takes a little haughtiness to launch Britain"s greatest ever rights issue to at the behind of an merger diligent with regulatory and domestic complications inside of 6 months of receiving on a new pursuit but Tidjane Thiam is a prime man in a hurry.

The 47-year-old Prudential arch senior manager took a five-year sabbatical from the corporate universe in 1994 when he left the Paris bureau of McKinsey for an luckless domestic career in his local Ivory Coast.

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That big-hearted try to put something at the behind of finished as so majority forays in to open hold up do in West Africa in a troops manoeuvre and residence arrest. Not for zero is he well known as "the majority engaging man in insurance".

Within 6 months, however, Thiam was at the behind of behind a table at McKinsey, this time as a partner, and his diversion plan was at the behind of on track.

Two years after he was lured to London by Aviva, where he rose to be arch senior manager of Aviva Europe prior to being hired by the Prudential with the assistance of a �650,000 golden hello and the guarantee of advancement. Within eighteen months the �1.24m-a-year monetary senior manager had turn arch senior manager of the FTSE100 word group.

What helps have the sharp-suited, multilingual Thiam the preferred senior manager to drive by the AIA takeover, according to some, is his approach with the domestic classes.

"Government sorts similar to him," says one who has seen him in action. "He was the man at Davos who everybody longed for to meet. He"s severely impressive."

Kevin Ryan, word researcher at ING, agrees. "He"s a really difficult man and a really desirable man and in conditions of genius and capability he can [make this understanding work]," he says.

"I would theory Mark Tucker was most some-more of an operations man but Tidjane is some-more of a top-down plan man interjection to his time at McKinsey.

"They would have come at it from opposite angles. Tucker would have seen all the operational difficulties but Tidjane would see the bigger design and would be means to clear removing by all the things you"ve got to get through."

Thiam was declared one of the World Economic Forum"s 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow in 1998. By apropos a part of of Tony Blair"s Commission for Africa in 2004 and the Africa Progress Panel that it spawned, he over that guarantee in the margin of great functions a little time ago. Now he has the possibility to have his symbol in the blurb globe too.