"We have 10 months of summer." Peter Brown Antony Hichens, former chairman, DS Smith 'When it comes to management trends, I'm a bit of an old cynic' This autumn, Antony Hichens relinquished his chairmanship of DS Smith, the UK-based paper manufacturer, and accepted that - at 71 - it might be time to take things a bit easy Well, only a bit. I call California the land of fruits and nuts, but it's a great place to grow roses, which is what I do for fun," he says. Does he use Botox himself? "I've only used it once, about six years ago It's about the same as pricking your thumb on a rose. "Ever since the beginning, I never had any problem taking decisions I could very quickly analyse my way through a situation.

It's all about asking the right questions." When Pyott was at LBS, half the class was British Now, it's international Pyott himself has lived in 10 countries and worked in seven. His advice to today's graduates? "Get an education and a good job, and regard that as the first rung on the ladder." And so, the big question. If you make people in bureaucracies very busy, they have no time to fight each other. The good people thrive on it because decision making is speeded up.

"People take you seriously when you say you need to save money. The first year, I asked for a 33 per cent world-wide overheard cut. That was greeted by bulging eyeballs (which was good for an eyecare company) I actually got 22 per cent. "Everywhere I've worked in the world, the Scottish reputation is a good tool," he says. Based on a bacterium called clostridium botulinum, it could stop an eyelid blinking, and Allergan had the patent These days it does a lot of other things as well. "What most people don't know is that, last year, 57 per cent of the Botox sales had nothing to do with wrinkles," Pyott says "It's all about movement disorders. With Botox, a muscle is being weakened or relaxed for benefit." He has transferred manufacturing from California to Ireland, though the research is still done in America, and has set up his European HQ in Marlow, Buckinghamshire.

"The most valuable thing was the many and varied types of case studies. It was refreshing that different people had different solutions. The older you get, the more you realise that there are multiple answers to everything, and the knack is seeing the consequences." Whatever LBS gave him, it worked. Pyott was swiftly hired by Novartis, a Swiss conglomerate, and rose through the ranks for 17 years before Allergan, a California eyecare company, headhunted him. He was only the third CEO in 58 years, but instantly reformed the business, astounding the founder by hiving off the eye-care division He had spotted the potential of Botox. "It's a great company, but my final choice was industry rather than consulting," he says The second year was all about strategy and marketing. "I was also looking for the hard-skills toolkit, which was what I got in the first year: accountancy, marketing, finance - the building blocks.

In the City at that time, there were a lot of old-boy networks and people flying by the seat of their pants I'm uncomfortable with that. I like to feel well-versed and knowledgeable." For his summer placement, Pyott worked for the consultants Bain and Co in Germany. "Anyone who was clever learnt that the only way you could get through the work was through a team or syndicate," he says. "We were put in assigned groups for a couple of weeks, then everybody chose their own work group.