In The Spotlight: Jeff Meyer, Gartmore

Gartmore boss steps out of the shadow of his famous father

Chances are that Jeff Meyer, the chief executive of Gartmore,will have coped with the turmoil at the investment manager over the past couple of months. No doubt it hurt for Mr Meyer to wave goodbye to more than £1bn of funds as investors reacted nervously to his suspension of star manager Guillaume Rambourg, but crisis management at the highest level of business is in the family genes.

Mr Meyer's dad, Edward, ran the American airline TWA for almost a decade, before the corporate raider Carl Icahn pushed him out as part of his takeover, and went on to a senior role at Hilton International. His great-uncle, meanwhile, is a former president of the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr Meyer himself has run Gartmore since 2005, right through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In December, despite some scepticism in the market, he successfully floated the fund manager on the stock market only to see 5 per cent of assets disappear in the first quarter of this year courtesy of the Rambourg scandal.

That appears now to have been a storm in a teacup, with the fund manager cleared of any dishonesty, despite a breach of internal rules. But the suspension came only a week after a series of dawn raids in the City by the Financial Services Authority, and some investors seem to have panicked after getting the wrong end of the stick.

Fortunately for Gartmore, Mr Meyer, with his family history, is made of sterner stuff. Not that he is entirely a product of his all-American upbringing. The father of four daughters, he has embraced Britain's national sport since moving to this country and now coaches a girls' football team in Hampstead.