Farrukh Khan

Serial entrepreneur and managing director, spamjab

Farrukh Khan is a serial entrepreneur with a unique track record of success.

His most recent venture is spamjab, a service aimed at parents and teachers that want to protect children from unsolicited - and often insalubrious - emails. It addresses the current flaws in existing anti-spam software, allowing it to achieve the highest ever levels of email filtration.

Farrukh's first business venture started in May 1988, when he set-up Farrukh Systems Ltd. The company manufactures a software program for the printing industry that has sold over 6,000 copies worldwide. It's one of the few off-the-shelf software solutions manufactured in the UK.

Then in 1999, he began to invest in property. With his brother, he has developed the business into a multi-million pound portfolio.

His entrepreneurialism doesn't end with these three ventures, either. In 1999, Farrukh raised £1/2m of investment in one night in order to set up free4u.de, a German ISP which at one point had 650,000 registered users. He then set-up freundedirekt.de, the German equivalent of Friends Reunited, which he subsequently sold on to the site.

You'd imagine that this level of success would exclude any possibility of a life outside the office. Not so with Farrukh. He's such an extraordinary chess player that he's played against, and beaten, grand masters and has dined with Gary Kasparov. His adventurous streak has led him to play a gangster in a Pakistani TV drama, and he's even invested in a Kate Winslet film. All of this 'extra-curricular' activity has been carried out in addition to his regular role as founder and managing director of the five companies he currently owns and runs.

Farrukh has a degree in Engineering from Cambridge University.