"Getting fired was the best thing that happened to me!"

Career Path: Jesper Kirstein, the founder of Denmark's best-known pensions and investment consultancy reveals the motivation that drove him to create his own business in 1993, at a time when he has now just done it a second time with his new investment management firm Spektrum.

BY RACHEL FIXSEN

Published: 11.09.17 at 13:36

What career path did you envision for yourself when you were younger?

When I was a child, I had an idea I would be an academic of some kind probably because I was quite good at school from early on. In fact I was top of the class! Yes, I was intelligent, but being a hard worker helps, and I have always worked hard. I didn't come from an academic family background, so that wasn't the reason I imagined working in academia. Going to university actually meant breaking away from my background, and I was the first one in my family to graduate. I was an only child and my parents were very much behind me. They wanted me to succeed.

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