Donald Glover

There’s another Donald in America with a diverse CV and a talent for making headlines, but let’s concentrate on the one everyone likes. Glover is a writer, actor, musician, comedian, producer, director, activist and father. He pinballs from one discipline to the next, gaining plaudits for every aspect of his work. (We also named him the best-dressed man in the world in 2017.) Glover credits his wide artistic output to an even wider set of influences.

Tom Ford

The fastidious Tom Ford studied art history at NYU but dropped out after a year to act in commercials; he eventually graduated from design school Parsons in architecture, although he also studied fashion in his final year. With just two years at clothing group Perry Ellis under his calfskin belt, he took the then-faltering Gucci from the brink of bankruptcy to a $4.3bn powerhouse, at one point simultaneously helming Yves Saint Laurent, before setting up his own massively successful brand. If there’s anything he can’t do, it’s not directing, screenwriting or producing movies: witness A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals.

Elon Musk

Having established four companies in four disparate industries – Paypal (software and finance, so really two), Tesla (transport), SpaceX (er, space) and SolarCity (energy), the real-life Tony Stark should by rights be named ‘Elon Sweet Smell Of Success’. Asked how he’s able to grasp esoteric subjects such as rocket science, he replied, “I read books” – as many as two a day in his late teens. Musk taught himself to code at age 12 by building a computer game called Blastar which he sold for $500 and went on to earn degrees in economics and physics. He’s now worth $20bn.

David Beckham

It might seem counterintuitive to classify someone pilloried for his supposed lack of intelligence as a ‘Renaissance Man’. But David Beckham is not only a powerful influence on the way men look, but as a doting father unafraid to exhibit ‘feminine’ qualities (or clothes), how they act too. When so few sportsmen from these shores explore other cultures, he’s the first Englishman to win titles in four countries. Consider how he’s parlayed being good at football and photogenic – not unique characteristics – into enormous commercial success and cultural sway, then try and tell us that he’s not smart.