Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell started his career by working in the mailroom of EMI records. Similarly to Richard Branson, Simon Cowell also dropped out of school. However he didn't have any plans. He was constantly starting and quitting new jobs. His dad set up an interview at EMI records to work with him and Simon stuck to this job for quite a while. EMI records promoted him to the talent scout, they produced quite a few hits together but unfortunately he had to leave on a mutual agreement. Simon created a new record label called 'Fanfare records' sadly its success didn't last long due to financial reasons and he was forced to move back in with his parents. Simon got a job at BMG records and worked his way up in the company. He was extremely successful in this job selling over 150 million records. In 2001 Simon came up with the idea of a musical talent show aired on TV, the winner of this show would be promised a record deal with BMG record. This show was called Pop Idol, and he used similar ideas to make other TV shows such as X-Factor and Britain's got talent. In 2011 he brought the extremely successful TV show X-Factor to the USA and made the majority of his money in the USA.

Traits and characteristics:
Ambitious - Bringing his TV show to America and making it successful was highly unlikely and would require lots of work. However he was ambitious enough to do it anyway.
Perseverance - Although a lot of the time he was unsuccessful  he stuck at it, this is what got him where he is today.

Weaknesses:
Simon Cowell doesn't seem to care so much for the contestants on his shows.
Also he is disliked by a lot of people.