Things have gone really rather well for Chris McWilton since he left KPMG in January 2003. He had been born and bred in the firm’s auditing business and after 21 years he “bled KPMG blue”. But then he jumped ship and joined Mastercard as controller, moving up to chief financial officer after a few months.

The card network went public three years later and, in a spectacular run of almost Google-like proportions, the shares have since risen nearly fivefold. “Its been a great ride,” he says at Mastercard’s headquarters, north of New York City.