An ugly mug rules at the top of the corporate ladder

HANDSOME MEN don't belong in corporate life. This thought occurred to me last week when I went to see Up in the Air,in which George Clooney plays a jet-setting consultant who flies around the US firing people, writes LUCY KELLAWAY

For a Hollywood film, it is remarkably convincing. The sacked workers (played by real people who have recently lost their jobs) are angry and humiliated in just the right way. Clooney is smoothly professional and insultingly upbeat in just the right way, too. Only once did I think his smarmy lies had gone too far, when he says as he strips one man of his livelihood: “Anyone who ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are right now” – but then I read later that this line was pinched from Michael Bloomberg.

Instead, the problem with the film is that Clooney is simply too good-looking to be credible. In his other roles, his perfectly symmetrical features have been less out of place. As the paediatrician in ERhe was perfectly plausible. So too as a CIA agent in Syriana. He was even acceptable as a journalist in One Fine Day.

But for the corporate world, Clooney won’t do. If you want to see the real thing, visit the website of Forbes where there is an article by a HR consultant called Burton Goldfield. In real life, Goldfield does something similar to what Clooney does on film, but I hope he won’t mind if I point out that he doesn’t look like Clooney at all. He is a balding man in late middle age with a forgettable face.

In an attempt to stand up my theory about this dearth of beauty in corporate life, last week I sent an e-mail to the 500 journalists who work at the Financial Times. "Can anyone think of any seriously good-looking senior men in business?" I asked. Immediately a pattern started to emerge. There are plenty of handsome investment bankers and handsome hedge fund managers.

Jamie Dimon is a minor beauty, Arki Busson a major one.

In continental Europe, corporate life is stuffed with matinee idols. There is Alessandro Benetton, Wolfgang Bernhard at Daimler, Bernard Arnault at LVMH, Henri de Castries at Axa, François-Henri Pinault at PPR – all are distractingly good-looking, and there are many more where they came from.

But in the UK and the US, the pickings are very slim indeed.

There are a few dishy entrepreneurs. Michael Dell is quite handsome in a square-jawed sort of way. Richard Branson has, or had, something. But in mainstream corporate life in the UK and the US, the ugly mug rules.

In Britain, the situation is particularly dismal. FTjournalists, with their combined experience of business life running into thousands of years, could only think of two possible candidates. Curiously, both called Rose: Sir John at Rolls-Royce and (more controversially) Sir Stuart at Marks and Spencer.

In the US, there were a few more suggestions of beautiful bosses, but almost all were from media companies where different rules apply. Stephen Burke at Comcast is easy on the eye, as is Jeffrey Bewkes at Time Warner.

If my theory is true, I can think of three possible explanations. The first is that men in business start handsome enough but by the time they are big enough to get noticed they are old and bald and have eaten too many airline meals.

Their looks have gone and unlike business women they don’t go to such lengths to hang on to them. They can’t even compensate for dwindling physical charm by sheer power of personality, as Anglo-Saxon corporate life is about conformity, and strong expressions of individuality – even at the top – are not encouraged.

The second and more plausible explanation is that for beautiful men there are easier and more glamorous paths to success than a long arduous climb up the ladder in cement or insurance. Instead they go into investment banking, show business, media and the law, where looks – and the arrogance that goes with them – are admired.

The third possibility is that obviously handsome men are discriminated against in business. As plain men take almost all the hiring decisions they like to keep the good-looking ones out. With women, the reverse is true. A beautiful woman gets hired in a trice.

But whatever the reason, the predominance of plain Johns in corporate life has something to be said for it. Being fired isn’t nice, but it’s even less nice if the man with the axe has a full head of hair and beautiful brown eyes that shine on his victim with fake compassion. I would much rather reach for the tissues in front of someone whose appearance might give them something to cry about, too. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)