Andy MacGovern, 38: paratrooper turned manager

If you think Human Resources or Learning people aren't very exciting then chances are you haven't met Andy MacGovern - his past as a bodyguard to Bill Gates and in British Army counter-terrorism are the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. For the moment at least "MacGovern: The Movie" will have to wait. The former paratrooper-turned-MBA business manager has his hands full in the post-merger world of Thomson-Reuters Geneva. Simple pleasures like having lunch are a rare treat for Andy MacGovern these days. Though his meal is waiting for him at his local restaurant in the Swiss-French mountains, the diet is pure Blackberry - urgent calls from the office at Thomson-Reuters where two "big technology project launches are kicking off".                                      
After a flurry of technical directives and emails to exotic-sounding colleagues in Geneva - “and I thought London was international,” says MacGovern, 38 - the issue is resolved. He returns to his table where his order of salad looks like a wise choice born of experience.
“There’s no typical day,” says frontalier MacGovern, who is attempting to relax after returning from New York on business.“You work weekends, you work late and start early, it’s par for the course for big technology projects; you can’t test them during work hours.”
 
In this idyllic Haute-Savoie setting in nearby France the problem - something to do with "active directory configuration problems" - sounds as surreal as MacGovern’s life pre-Reuters. After joining the British Army’s Parachute Regiment at 16 he spent seven years in the service, including nearly three years with counter-terrorism units in Belfast, Northern Ireland, before leaving the army, moving to Hong Kong and the Philippines to work as a “security consultant”.  
MacGovern then lets slip that he was tasked with protecting a Mr W. Gates during the Asia leg of the Windows 95 launch (check logo). It could almost be an apology the way he says his encounter with the Microsoft mogul “was only for a week”. He also remembers a vaguely bizarre life-imitates-art moment when he was called on to look after movie hard man Steven Seagal, who was promoting the action film 'On Deadly Ground' at the time.

If you think Human Resources or Learning people aren't very exciting then chances are you haven't met Andy MacGovern - his past as a bodyguard to Bill Gates and in British Army counter-terrorism are the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. For the moment at least "MacGovern: The Movie" will have to wait. The former paratrooper-turned-MBA business manager has his hands full in the post-merger world of Thomson-Reuters Geneva. Simple pleasures like having lunch are a rare treat for Andy MacGovern these days. Though his meal is waiting for him at his local restaurant in the Swiss-French mountains, the diet is pure Blackberry - urgent calls from the office at Thomson-Reuters where two "big technology project launches are kicking off".                                      
After a flurry of technical directives and emails to exotic-sounding colleagues in Geneva - “and I thought London was international,” says MacGovern, 38 - the issue is resolved. He returns to his table where his order of salad looks like a wise choice born of experience.
“There’s no typical day,” says frontalier MacGovern, who is attempting to relax after returning from New York on business.“You work weekends, you work late and start early, it’s par for the course for big technology projects; you can’t test them during work hours.”
 
In this idyllic Haute-Savoie setting in nearby France the problem - something to do with "active directory configuration problems" - sounds as surreal as MacGovern’s life pre-Reuters. After joining the British Army’s Parachute Regiment at 16 he spent seven years in the service, including nearly three years with counter-terrorism units in Belfast, Northern Ireland, before leaving the army, moving to Hong Kong and the Philippines to work as a “security consultant”.  
MacGovern then lets slip that he was tasked with protecting a Mr W. Gates during the Asia leg of the Windows 95 launch (check logo). It could almost be an apology the way he says his encounter with the Microsoft mogul “was only for a week”. He also remembers a vaguely bizarre life-imitates-art moment when he was called on to look after movie hard man Steven Seagal, who was promoting the action film 'On Deadly Ground' at the time.

With a jaw-dropping, high-octane CV like MacGovern’s, you can’t help wondering what brought him to Thomson-Reuters in Geneva. Aren't the sober corporate surroundings of the world’s largest supplier of financial data and market systems a little on the quiet side?

Another MacGovern smile confirms that the transition from action man to action manager hasn't left any psychological trace. MacGovern agrees that if you'd asked him 10 years ago whether he could have seen himself where he is now “the answer would be ‘no’”. Yet, he is clearly delighted with the way things have turned out. He relishes for instance the fact that the most dramatic thing about his day are the mountain-meets-lake views on his drive to the office from his home just over the border in France. Perhaps this inspired him to take up fly-fishing, though he claims to be “a liability”. 
With his Head of Talent & Learning hat on, MacGovern calls his work “stuff you’ve kind of got to be into to get excited about”, though it is clear he certainly is. As are others; he just scooped the top Chief Learning Officer Magazine award – the industry bible - for innovation after being voted into gold place by his peers. The only negative he can find is not being forced to practise his French in Geneva because his cosmopolitan colleagues speak such good English. He also jokes that “they think I’m nuts for driving one hour to work, but I have to explain that in the UK my commute was double that, each way”. 
Could the next chapter in MacGovern’s life see him returning to Britain? “No,” he says simply, before looking at the surrounding mountains and adding: “When I’m working from home I can still get hold of the guys from Asia in the morning, do a run in the mountains at lunchtime then be back at home for the USA in the afternoon. Where else could I do that?”