CEO Secrets: 'I smashed my platinum discs - then rebuilt them'
Sir Robin Millar is one of the UK's most successful record producers. He helped mastermind some of the biggest hits of the 1980s, working with the likes of Sade and Spandau Ballet. He lost his sight in his mid-thirties and this has shaped the way he works with artists.
"Singers who are very pretty or handsome, without knowing it, are quite disarmed by me," says Sir Robin.
This suits his working method. To encourage artists to sing with emotion, he invites them to "sing ugly", he tells me, as we sit in his south London home studio.
"I want them to adopt mannerisms and facial expressions that reflect what they are going through."
They need to do this so he can capture the emotional turmoil they feel inside.
It's easier to not care what you look like when you are working with a blind producer, he reflects.
Sir Robin grew up in north London and loved music from an early age, showing an aptitude for playing the guitar.
However, his world changed at the age of 16 when he found out that he would progressively go blind, because of the genetic condition retinitis pigmentosa.
It was a stroke of luck that gave him his initial ticket into the music world. His sister married Mick Taylor, who joined The Rolling Stones in 1969. He toured with the band and observed the magic of the music-making process.
He tried a range of jobs, including being a solo musician, before setting up his own music studio in London. Possessing a nose for business, he created a record label and management business in parallel to his recording work, which over time has made him millions.
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