Ascertaining Mansfield-Page’s ethnicity is quite the exercise in creativity. His British accent can be a surprise, considering his dark, handsome looks (and Malay middle name) that betray his Singaporean roots.
Define the modern gentleman.
Someone who can be depended upon and is an alpha in society. He is also someone who is graceful under pressure. You can fix any problem with the latter quality.
What’s the biggest problem you’ve ever fixed?
I’ll tell you one from my volunteer firefighting training. We were tasked to extricate a dummy casualty but when we came out, the situation changed. Our instructor told us that we had to rescue two more people still inside the fire. Everyone was tired, but I took charge of the situation and told everyone that we had to calm down and figure out how to solve it as a team. When we got out of the fire after the second rescue, we measured our core temperature, and it was 60°C.
How do you rise up from failure?
I tend to reflect about what I’ve done wrong. If it’s something external, then I can’t do anything about it, but if it came from me, like I’d given up mentally or didn’t prepare well enough, then I try to see how I can do things differently. Everyone gets disheartened. But we have to rise above failure instead of crying over it.
Shirt, James’ own; wool coat, Loro Piana; Superocean Automatic 44 in steel with steel bracelet, Breitling