Day in the Life: Willie Watt, chief executive of fund manager

07:00 I usually wake up no earlier than 7am. One of the great things about living and working in Edinburgh is that home is never too far from the office. I have the luxury of spending a little bit longer in bed than might be the case were I in London.

If it's a nice morning I might walk to work through the park, or via any other route that gets me as far away from the traffic as possible. Sometimes I attempt some more vigorous exercise. I try to visit the gym three times a week, but usually I can only make it once.

08:15 Partly in recognition of my erratic gym attendance, I tend not to have any breakfast. Instead, I have a cup of coffee when I arrive in the office, followed by numerous cups of tea and water throughout the day.

When I reach my desk, the first thing I do is to check my emails and see if anyone's been in touch from North America during the night. North American clients account for 30% of our assets under management, with great potential to grow - hence my interest. There are often things that crop up and we usually have people travelling in the US who let me know what they have been doing.

I am very rarely woken up with news concerning the American market: I have a good chief investment officer and that duty falls upon him.

As chief executive, my primary role is to lead the business. Most importantly, it means I make sure we're doing what our clients want of us. I spend most of my time with our own people and with clients and their investment advisors, trying to find out how we can do things better.

Success in this industry means really engaging with clients and finding out what they need and why they need it, not just selling them things that we are good at. I do a lot of this myself: when it comes to talking about strategy, senior people usually expect to talk to other senior people.

09:00 My first meeting of the day is with a prospective client. They are looking for consistent outperformance of their benchmark, within an environment of managed risk. When they've finished talking to me, they go on to meet one of our client service directors and, critically, the fund manager who would manage their money if we won their business. Some days I meet as many as half a dozen different clients in Edinburgh. I also travel to meet clients and prospects on their home turf, typically London, New York, Geneva, or most recently, Stockholm.

10:30 My next meeting is with one of my direct reports who is responsible for new product development. We have been very successful in developing a range of long short equity products and are looking at combining our expertise in long short equities and pension fund mandates to launch a product that would give absolute returns to pension funds. We have no plans to launch the product yet, but it's something we are discussing internally.

11:30 I meet with one of our fund managers who has been part of an internal team working on a cultural programme to improve the way we do business. We set a lot of store on internal communication and culture.

Leadership is not just a question of what the chief executive does, but what everyone else does too. With this in mind, I hold regular 'town meetings'. At these I review our successes, and what we have to get better at. These are open question and answer sessions, where people in the company can ask me whatever they want.

Every Monday morning I also put time aside for a 'surgery', when any employee can come and talk to me for 20 minutes about their ideas and concerns. Sometimes no one comes, but on other occasions I am visited by two or three people who want to talk about everything from launching new funds to the size of their bonus. Last Monday I met an IT manager with fascinating ideas about how to improve communication and leadership.

Martin Currie has around 200 employees. Anthropologists say the classic village contains 250 people, because that's the number you can know personally. I know the first names of around 90% of our staff, and I'm working on the rest. It's vital that I know exactly who people are, and precisely what they do.

13:00 At least half the time, I eat lunch at my desk. The other half I eat with clients or their advisors. Sometimes I have lunch with other professionals, or with one or two of my counterparts in this industry. It helps me keep up to speed on what's going on.

14:00 When I'm in Edinburgh I try to keep at least one or two afternoons a week clear so that I get on with things - like 'walkabouts'. But this afternoon I'm preparing a paper for a conference.

There are important issues afoot: funds face a difficult time as a result of deficits; trustees are playing a bigger role in picking fund managers and making decisions; investment managers need to focus on matching products with liabilities. Again, it is a question of investment managers becoming more engaged and actively helping clients to find a solution.

18:30 I try to finish work no later than 6.30. I don't take work home; if I have more to do, I stay in the office. You need to separate work and home life.

After work I sometimes go to the gym, or have a beer or dinner with friends. I try to go to bed early, but rarely succeed. I usually read a novel for an hour before sleeping. Most of the time I'm asleep before midnight.