Rising star Bradley Green
What's so special? His tailoring company is on course to turn over £1m in time for his 30th birthday

Bradley Green founded Siverde (a play on "Mr Green" in Italian) when he was 20, with £200, having realised he was too strong minded to work for anyone else. He spent most of his cash on business cards and handed them out round Canary Wharf. "Never in a million years did I think it would work," he says, "but it did."

The office was his parents' garden shed, powered by an extension lead. While Green went out to see clients, an ex-colleague (persuaded over a couple of pints to come out of retirement) made the suits. They worked together until the third year of trading when Green landed a contract with a five-star hotel to make its uniforms.

He also offers a consultancy service—although he says he's not as harsh as Trinny and Susannah—and a new weekend range—tailor-made jeans, moleskin trousers and jackets.

Green's main challenge, he says, was "being skint". He explains: "What you need is a hell of a lot of money. I also had to think of an innovative way of marketing, so we introduced a referral scheme with a 20 per cent discount for each person referred."

He says his relative youth also proved to be an obstacle. "When I went to the bank to ask for a business loan, they laughed at me—so that's really driven me," he says. "I found it easiest to lie about my age, avoid the question or to make out I was just an employee."

Last year's turnover was £280,000. "My goal is to turn over £1m by the time I'm 30—so I have three years," he says.