Facing me across the boardroom table of his modest yet stylish offices in London’s Kingsway, Lloyd Dorfman cuts an unassuming figure. It’s only when we delve into the remarkable rise of Travelex, the world famous foreign exchange brand he built from scratch, that I discover the steely determination that has steered the firm through impressive diversification, global expansion and an acquisition of a scale that would terrify the average business owner.
“Knocking down doors is a recurring theme,” Dorfman acknowledges. Doors are one thing, but in building a firm that has revenues of £650m, operations in 105 airports, and an enviable slice of global trade payments, he’s knocked a few walls through as well.
Leap of faith
Dorfman’s school friends at St Paul’s in London would read the newspaper backwards to get the football news first, but he’d be straight into the financial pages. “I always loved business, and when I started to think about my career, I realised I’d be disappointed if I spent my life having not even tried to start my own,” he says. After a “comfortable, middle class” upbringing, he spent three formative years in the City during the mid-1970s, a time at least as challenging for the Square Mile as the current liquidity calamity.
By 1976, the 24-year-old Dorfman had a new wife and baby to support, enough to influence most to postpone their empire building, never mind the dire economic circumstances that were engulfing the country. But for Dorfman, there was no better time to make the leap. “I decided if I was going to try it, this was the time. I can’t produce the 30-year business plan for you or show you how it was going to happen,” he says. “When you start a business from scratch, your first hope and desire is that you can at least earn a living. As it settles down and you find yourself generating revenue, you start to think about expanding, and building capital. First, it’s a leap of faith.”
To paraphrase Warren Buffett, in a climate of fear, Dorfman felt the time was ripe for greed; the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 was about to pack London with tourists. His first bureau de change kiosk, in Southampton Row in central London, was financed with a £25,000 loan from a family friend. At first, growth was slow and space was tight. If he needed the toilet, he had to shut the shop and run to the nearby Bonnington Hotel.