esquire vertu - blink - take it to the limit - 7 june 2010
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8/9/2019 Esquire VERTU - Blink - Take it to the Limit - 7 June 2010
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esquire |promotion esquire |promot
share yourspirit of
adventure
For the chance to own the entire
collection of ve handsets in the ne
Vertu Ascent 2010 collection, all yo
have to do is take a photograph of
yourself enjoying your most
exhilarating adventure or
adventurous experience. You caninterpret the term as loosely as yo
like, all we ask is that you keep it th
right side of legal. Once youre hap
with the results (no digital tricker
please) then upload it to www.vert
com before 30 June 2010, and stan
back and admire. The nalists wil
be notied by email and the winne
will be announced at the Vertu an
Esquire event, details below.
exclusive
esquireevent
Join Esquire and Vertu on Tuesda
13 July for your chance to meet Jak
Pablo and Peter, where theyll be
talking about their fascinating lif
and business experiences.
There will be delicious cocktails
and canaps served. We will also
be showcasing a selection of the to
images from Vertus Share Your
Spirit Of Adventure online gallery
and the winner will be chosen and
announced. The event will take
place from 6.30pm to 9pm at
The Hempel, London, W2. If youwould like to attend, email your
name and number of tickets requir
to [email protected] and put
VERTU in the subject box.
The event is only open to those ove
18 years and is named guest list onl
If demand for places exceeds venu
capacity, tickets will be allocated
on a ballot basis.
Being tough, powerful and staying stylish
isnt an easy combination to carry off, but
the new Vertu Ascent phone manages it
with aplomb. Every component has been
engineered for strength and hi-tech metals
and ceramics of a kind found on the Nasa
space shuttle abound. I wanted Ascent tobe inuenced by power, by energy, by the
precision of a beautiful engine, says Vertu
principal designer Frank Nuovo. The
sapphire crystal lens alone can withstand
the heat from a blowtorch, while each
model undergoes stringent free-fall and
screen-impact tests. Vertus Fortress
system is equally failsafe, wirelessly
backing up your data to ultra-secure
servers located in an ex-military bunker
thrill seekers
When it comes to taking on the spiritof adventure, these three men havedone it in style
take it to
the limit
in the UK, meaning your business willalways be your business. Add in Vertus
legendary click-of-a-button concierge
service and you have the ultimate tool to
keep you connected in every way.
In addition to extreme technological
advances, its good to know that there are
also some people who are still dr iven by
exploring the outer limits of human
endurance, testing their own abilities
against their surroundings, and pushing
their creative and entrepreneurial powers
to the max.
That spirit of adventure is alive and
thriving in three very different men:
explorer and climber Jake Meyer, architect
and model Pablo Abellan Villastrigo
and entrepreneur and businessman
Peter Leiman.
Meyer succeeded in becoming theyoungest Briton to climb Everest and
then went on to become the youngest man
in the world to climb the Seven Summits,
the highest peaks of the seven continents.
A Sandhurst educated army scholar
who has been in the Territorial Army for
seven years, Meyer subjected his body to
the kind of temperature extremes mere
mortals can only imagine. He says he feels
most alive when hes dicing with death.
As far as exhilarating moments go, mybest has to be reaching the summit of
Everest at the age of 21, he tells Esquire.
We had spent over two months preparing
for the nal summit assault; climbing up
and down the mountain acclimatising our
bodies to the extremes of the cold and lack
of oxygen of the upper reaches of t he
mountain. The summit was being battered
by ferocious storms and winds, while we
waited for a weather window.
When it eventually appeared, over a
three-day period we made our dash for the
summit. The summit day itself was 22 hours
long, physically and mentally exhausting,
and required much more than I could ever
have imagined. After climbing through the
night along knife-edge ridges, up sheer
cliffs and stepping over the bodies of other,
not so fortunate, climbers who had
succumbed to the death zone we
eventually dragged ourselves onto the
highest point on Earth.
It was an incredible feeling to be the
highest humans on the planet, and those
few precious moments on top, with the
world at your feet, made all the pain and
hardship worthwhile.
Like Meyer, architect, designer and
model Pablo Abellan Villastrigo is no
stranger to juggling the various disciplines
needed in order to rise above others in his
chosen eld. After completing a masters inarchitecture at Oxford and the Royal
College, he worked on projects for Michael
Hopkins Architects while juggling a
modelling career and founding his own
design company.
In-between modelling assignments,
he found himself working on more
unofcial commissions for celebrities,
fashion editors and urban start-ups. This
eventually led him to Manhattan where
he was to have the most exhilarating
experience of his working life.
As the taxi pulled up on 72nd St reet
and stopped outside the Dakota building
I hadnt really realised where I was going,
but by the time the lift doors opened on the
seventh oor I realised it was going t o be
very special. Seeing the home of two of the
most inuential artists of the last century[John Lennon and Yoko Ono] had a huge
impact on my creative life and made me
question whether form should always
follow function.
Bringing this kind of creative air to
business is something only the top level of
entrepreneurs can do Peter Leiman,
My best moment has tobe reaching the summitof Everest aged 21
with a background in nance, aviation and
government is one of them. As a mergers
and acquisitions investment banker at UBS
Warburg, he advised FTSE 100 companies
on strategy and led a team involved in the
start-up of an Asian low-cost airline.
He was also one of President Clintons
most respected advisors as part of the
advance staff at the White House in 2000.
Naturally, he gained his MBA from
Harvard and is the co-founder and now
managing director of Blink Europes
rst air-taxi service.
Carrying up to four passengers, Blinkjets provide access to more than 600
destinations throughout Europe coupling
all the obvious benets of private air travel
(door-to-door service and no chavs in
tracksuits sitting next to you) at prices
competitive with commercial business class.
Drawing on his considerable reserves
of passion, commitment and acumen, Peter
says his most exciting moment to date was
raising $30m to start Blink then being
left in charge to run the company with his
co-founder.
After seeing more than 60 different
investors, ranging from angel investors to
institutional private equity and venture
capitalists, we nally identied three
European investors who funded us. It was
daunting, but at the same time exhilarating
to be left in charge and empowered to runthe business considering that we had no
aviation or management experience and
were fresh out of business school.
So whether you work in an of ce, a
studio or up a mountain yourself, you can
be your own real act ion hero. All you need
to do is get stuck in.
From LeFtJake Meyer, Pablo abellan
Villastrigo and Peter leiMan with new
Vertu ascent 2010 collection
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