Michael Tobert grew up in Nottinghamshire. After Oxford University, he tried his hand in the City of London (where he hated every moment), at a water company in the West Midlands and at the London Business School. He then headed north where his fragmented career culminated in an attempt to start his own publishing company. This, to his wife's astonishment, was not a total failure. He has lived in St Andrews for the last 20 years and spends his spare time on the golf course.