My BIGGEST MISTAKE: Leo Murray - School daze

LEO MURRAY, 55, joined BP after studying languages. He then worked for Courtaulds and a management consultants before joining Rothmans where he became head of Rothmans International Tobacco Ltd. He has been director of Cranfield School of Management for 12 years.

I THOUGHT I had made my biggest mistake by moving to Cranfield, because I had a very difficult time initially. I was an innocent in academia. When you run a business, you are there to make the maximum amount of bottom line. At Cranfield, I couldn't see cause and effect. How do you measure the success of the place?

Since then I have become much less linear, but this place is now much more commercial than it was. I have brought the mechanics of management here, but it's also about trying to put that together with the academic and teaching skills of my colleagues.

From thinking I had made the biggest mistake, I've found it's given me huge opportunities to change and develop myself, as well as a feeling of ownership and belonging.