Mobile phones guru thinks the future's alternative

HANS Snook draws on yet another cigarette and smiles. The founder of mobile phone company Orange has a 30-a-day habit, but a looming medical check-up does not faze him.

'They can never find anything really wrong with me. The doctor always says, 'You just must be one of those lucky people'.'

Few would argue with him. Snook made a £40m personal fortune as Orange changed hands four times in seven years.

That has provided him with more than enough cash not only to feed his cigarette habit, but also to fund his fascination with alternative therapies including crystals and colonic irrigation.

Wags have called him the Carole Caplin of the business world. At times his image as a New Age hippy threatened to eclipse the trendy mobile phone brand he was building up.

'I don't regret talking about [my beliefs] at all. I didn't think it would ever generate this much interest,' he says, sipping a powerful black coffee.

Since quitting Orange in 2001, Snook has become one of the company's fiercest critics. But his main project has been setting up the Diagnostic Clinic, a business based just off Harley Street, into which he has sunk £1.5m.

His 'baby' combines preventative healthcare with alternative remedies.

Snook was on the hippy trail backpacking around Asia 20 years ago when he fell into a job with a pager company.

That led him to a return to Britain to run Orange - the company that made mobile phones a fashion accessory in the 1990s and broke up the duopoly of Vodafone and Cellnet with its mantra 'The Future's Bright'.

At first glance, Snook, 56, does not appear to fit into the quiet haven of the Diagnostic Clinic. Mobile phones - the devices which he evangelised about for years - have to be switched to silent in the waiting room. When patients go upstairs to be examined, they must be turned off altogether to stop them interfering with the equipment.

Other than for a three-hour weekly management meeting, Snook is not often here. He keeps his papers in a pigeon hole in the chief executive's office.

'I don't have a desperate need to get in there and drive it,' he says, glasses slung around his neck and Rolex glinting on his arm.

Snook made no secret of his true passion while he was running Orange. An obsession with health was planted in his mind by his German homeopath grandfather.

His corporate life and private interests are still entwined. When he became chairman of Carphone Warehouse he brought in feng shui consultants to set up his office.

Chief executive Charles Dunstone also borrowed them, but 'he didn't have to make too many changes'.

So have New Age methods benefited the business? 'It hasn't hurt. The share price has almost doubled since I joined. That isn't due to feng shui, but it is like an insurance policy.

'I have seen so many things happen for the positive as a result of feng shui changes. And so many things stayed very bad when they weren't followed.'

The irony of beating the drum for alternative medicine while owning up to caffeine and nicotine addictions is not lost on him.

He offsets these substances by taking 16 vitamin supplements daily. A deep suntan helps him to retain a youthful appearance.

Snook goes for a self-administered colonic irrigation about once a year.

'For me it's more about the detoxing and the cleansing, but you do lose weight,' he says.

Born in Germany to a British Army sergeant father and a German mother, Snook has spent much of his life on the move.

After nine years of living in Wimbledon in south-west London, his family emigrated to Canada.

At 14, he wanted to be a doctor. 'I would read all these medical terms and actually convinced myself I had a terrible disease.'

He began studying to be a chartered accountant, but later switched to English literature and psychology.

Much of his time was spent reading up on philosophy, health and education in the library. 'I thought all of these things somehow fitted together.' He left without graduating and took a series of hotel jobs before setting off on his backpacking trip in 1983.

His body may be an open book, but his private life is a closed subject. Snook left his wife of 22 years for Helen, a married woman 21 years his junior. The couple live in Kensington, west London.

Those bald facts are a matter of public record, but the emotional drama behind them remains under wraps.

You cannot get colonic irrigation at Snook's clinic. It deals in screenings and diagnosis, rather than treatments and it is competing with healthcare providers such as Bupa to win corporate contracts. Snook gives the impression that it is faring well, but not exceptionally.

'It just takes a long time in discussion to bring in big new clients,' he says.

The clinic also does in-depth analysis of hair, saliva, skin and sweat samples to determine ailments or to identify possible future health worries.

At £330 for a 75-minute checkup, it does not come cheap.

The clinic looks set to cover costs later this year. Plans to open another five 'full service' clinics and mobile check-up 'pods' elsewhere around the country seem a long way from fruition.

Snook is nonetheless in talks with potential investors having taken his plea for more spending on preventative medicine to Downing Street with little effect. 'They said they had to let market forces drive things forward. And in the meantime the £70bn a year you are spending [on the NHS] is going to go up and up.'

Snook turns down lots of job offers - most of them in telecoms and technology.

It would be hard to describe him as overworked. Carphone takes up one day a week and the clinic just three hours.

But he made the shortlist for the chairmanship of Channel 4 and you get the feeling that he could pop up in a big creative role at any time.

He says he does not miss running a big organisation. 'I enjoyed doing it while I was there. But it came to the end of its natural life for me.'

Meanwhile, he is 'quite happy to brainstorm with people if I am interested in their idea'.

In his soft transatlantic growl, he says: 'I have absolutely no problem filling my time.'

As a favour to its Thai minority shareholder, he is also still chairman of Orange Thailand. The post fits nicely with his six trips to Thai spas every year.

Orange is winding down its involvement in the joint venture and is expected to sell out completely if the business floats.

Snook is critical of that decision. He also blames Orange for a decrease in customer satisfaction with service from big mobile operators.

'It has taken its eye off the ball. If one company does not focus on something and make it successful, others aren't going to follow suit. They have all been too focused purely on the financials.'

Of the current crop of telecoms executives, Snook is most impressed by Rene Obermann at T-Mobile.

Arun Sarin, at Vodafone, 'hasn't yet shown the same presence as Chris', he says, referring to Sir Christopher Gent, Sarin's predecessor.

Competition in the UK market is intensifying, which is good news for Carphone.

'My guess is it is still going to be another very, very good Christmas.

'Virtually everyone will have 3G by the end of the year and there will be a lot of new handsets,' he enthuses.

Snook may be a bit of an oddball in the staid world of City suits, but there is little doubt that his future remains bright.