Howard Lewis, 53, cultured, creative and curious, brings a multifarious box of tricks to the table. After five years of spectacular underachievement at St Pauls, he entered the stock market straight from school, joining the patrician firm of Cazenove as a valuations assistant and thereafter extending his repertoire as a trainee at R Layton. He subsequently built a private client business with various brokers, who have now largely departed for that great trading floor in the sky, before cofounding Thesaurus, a pioneer in the provision of electronic information services to the art and collectibles world. The company developed an auction search facility enabling subscribers, typically dealers, collectors and museums, to source items for sale globally that met their precise criteria. Thesaurus acquired Trace which was focused upon the identification and pursuit of stolen art and the databases of each scoured one another daily seeking potential matches. Trace liaised closely with law enforcement agencies, insurers, loss adjusters, heritage bodies, trade associations and the individually aggrieved and was responsible for recoveries worth over £100m. Its magazine was sent to some 170 countries worldwide. He is now the director of the Schorr Collection which, though dominated by Old Master Paintings, includes many diverse categories.