Alec Reed, founder of the internationally successful Reed Employment and its sister company Reed Executive, is now in his late seventies but still a dynamic and imposing figure, with an engaging personality that conceals his shrewd flair for business. From humble beginnings, he seized every opportunity that offered, clawing his way up from working on a milk round, to drudgery as a City office boy, until he had his first big break when Gillette took him on as a management trainee.

This is his remarkable story. Building on his early success with employment and recruitment agencies, he was able to develop his charitable interests - his first such venture was with drug addicts in Covent Garden in the 1960s, leading eventually to the establishment of the Alec Reed Foundation in 1989. Since then it has donated more than £18 million to good causes, and it supports many other charities including the Royal Opera House in London.

This eagerly awaited autobiography is both an enjoyable account of a richly varied life and an inspirational insight into an exceptionally successful entrepreneur's imagination.