Being ok with uncertainty

As we start the interview, which is conducted remotely, Peter Singlehurst quickly moves into explaining that his career and trajectory within Baillie Gifford have been both typical and atypical.

“I started on our graduate training program, which is basically how we recruit our investors. We recruit people straight out of university and most people don’t have finance degrees,” he says. He adds that the tools of finance of course are important to learn to do the job, but this is what they teach in their graduate training program, which has been running for some 40 years. “We have an internal culture and an infrastructure for training investors and the reason for why it’s important for us is because we want to be able to teach people how to think