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Episode details

Radio 4,·29 Oct 2026,·35 mins

Available for over a year

Post-prison businesses. From the board room to a jail cell... and back again? How easy is it to re-build a career after serving time for financial offences? Riordan Maynard was CEO of mobile phone company Touchbase which he grew from a small business selling mobile phones to a multi-national company with offices in Europe, Australia, Asia, and the USA. After the financial crisis of 2008, though, the company lost hundreds of millions of pounds worth of deals and what Riordan did next landed him in a US jail for five and a half years. His experience in prison, witnessing brutal violence and struggling with his mental health, sparked an idea for a new business. Sushovan Hussain was CFO of Autonomy, founded by the late Mike Lynch. He helped the business grow into one of Britain’s biggest technology companies. But after the company was sold on, he was convicted of fraud in the US and in 2019 he was sentenced to 5 years in jail. Leaving prison and struggling with getting insurance and bank accounts inspired him to set up a new business helping ex-offendors get back into work. Producers: Sally Abraham, Nick Holland, Phoebe Keane Editor: Matt Willis: