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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Kirsty Young

Tidjane Thiam

Desert Island Discs: Tidjane Thiam

04/11/2012

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Tidjane Thiam

Kirsty Young talks to castaway Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Prudential.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is businessman Tidjane Thiam.

He's chief executive of the Prudential, but he's about as far from the archetypal "man from the Pru" as you can get.
The seeds of his success were sown amid the complex political terrain of the Ivory Coast with an extended family heavily involved in politics and a father imprisoned for his beliefs. His life quickly took on an international flavour from West Africa to Morocco, Paris to Washington, but in his early 30s a coup in his homeland left him high and dry. He says "I had no job, no career, nothing at all. It taught me a lot about myself. If you've been in a situation where you have nothing there's nothing much you're afraid of."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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