Duchess Catherine’s brother James Middleton refers to himself as "Wonka-in-Chief".
The 28-year-old businessman – who runs the company Boomf, which sells marshmallows printed with personal messages or photographs – jokingly compares himself to the character Willy Wonka from Roald Dhal’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.
James made the confession to the Mail on Sunday newspaper as he defended himself against claims that his previous two companies have been failures.
He explained: "This is my third company. I had the Cake Kit Company and then Nice Cakes. But they did not fail. When you first go into a job, you start at the bottom and work your way up – you learn.
"With the Cake Kit Company, I had difficulty scaling it up. I learnt from that and applied the lessons at Nice Cakes.
"Then you find other issues. You can’t fit a cake through a letterbox, cakes are fragile and so on. So that developed into marshmallows.
"So those companies shut down, but I shut them down myself and did so with my head held high. I learnt so much from them. That is important. This company has taken off.
"I can take flak about my beard or from someone not liking what I do. But when I have employees who read something in the gossip columns that is hurtful to them I become passionate. I want them to have confidence and feel safe and secure in their job."
Wonka-in-Chief James Middleton
