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 events@esquire.co.uk 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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