For a man who shuns the media, David Ross has spent a lot of time making headlines. From stories about his eye-catching girlfriends and prodigious wealth to news of the multimillion-pound refurbishment of his medieval manor house and the chilling murder of his stepsister, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse has often been the unwilling occupant of the spotlight.
Charles Dunstone has described "Rosso" as his secret weapon and for years he beavered away in the background, building Carphone Warehouse into Europe's largest independent retailer of mobile phones before taking a step back three years ago. Dunstone, meanwhile, put in the face time with the City and the media, launching new ventures such as TalkTalk.
The pair met at Uppingham school but whereas Dunstone did poorly in exams and went straight into business selling computer parts, Ross departed for Nottingham University and then training as an accountant. Two years after Dunstone started Carphone Warehouse - in a faceless mansion block off London's Marylebone Road with £6,000 of his savings - he brought Ross into the business as finance director.
In fact, business is in Ross's blood. His grandfather was John Carl Ross, who took his family fishing operation in Grimsby and created one of Britain's biggest fishing firms before merging it with Young's. The success of the business had allowed the Ross family to expand their empire in the post-war period, snapping up the Great Grimsby Coal, Salt and Tanning Company - otherwise known as Cosalt - a firm founded in 1873 as a cooperative that sold all the supplies needed to run a fishing fleet. The business was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1971.
Ross succeeded his father as chairman of the board. He also maintains links with Grimsby through a local school, the Havelock Academy, which was set up in 2007 with help from his charitable foundation.
As for his own base, Ross, a Tory supporter and donor, has homes in London's Kensington and the Caribbean island of Mustique as well as in Switzerland and two country estates. He has lavished millions on his 13th-century mansion, Nevill Holt Hall near Market Harborough, which once belonged to the Cunard shipping family.
The grade-one listed house has given him a place to recover from his hangovers - he was renowned for partying at least three nights a week - in readiness for his favourite weekend recreation of shooting. Fellow guns have included Sir Richard Branson and Gary Lineker and last year he snapped up 4,500 hectares of prime grouse moor in Yorkshire for £22m.
He has another palatial pile in Northamptonshire - a 600ha estate at Brampton Ash - but put it up for sale last month at an asking price of £7.75m. Two years ago his stepsister, to whom Ross was close, was murdered there.
Fiona Marshall was killed along with her boyfriend, Richard Flippance, by her estranged husband, Alex Marshall. He is serving two life sentences.
Ross's own private life has drawn much interest from the tabloid press, not least because his one-time girlfriends include Saffron Aldridge, a model who used to be the face of Ralph Lauren, and Ali Cockayne, a fitness instructor and former partner of the England rugby star Will Carling. He has a son with Michelle Ross - they never married but share a surname - an ex-lapdancer who four years ago admitted benefit fraud.
