Frederick Henry Royce - Co-founder, Rolls-Royce

Born in 1863, Royce was originally a paper boy and was selling newspapers and delivering telegrams, having had only one year of formal schooling. He co-founded Rolls-Royce with Charles Stewart Rolls in 1906 and privatized it in 1987. Comparing to the millions the company now makes, Royce first drew his meager average salary of £1,250 per annum and died a decorated engineer who gave the world its best car designs without an engineering degree.

Lord Alan Sugar – Founder, Amstrad

Sugar left school at the age of 16 and later founded the electronic company ‘Amstrad’ (Alan Michael Sugar Trading) which he sold in 2007 for £125 million. He owns several other companies like Amsair and Amsprop. His net worth is $1.14 billion. He has also served Tottenham Hotspur as its chairman from 1991 to 2001. Sugar features in the UK version of ‘The Apprentice’. Sugar was knighted in 2000 for his exceptional services to business.