Jericho Chambers: Recent Episodes
Jericho Chambers
Jericho is a boutique consultancy, specialising in trust, purpose and engagement. We call this the holy trinity. Our podcasts deal with complex public policy issues, both for clients and society and aim to break beyond conventional echo chambers to bring about meaningful change. Find out more: www.jerichochambers.com
In case you missed it, we recently interviewed Nick Baird, as part of our Jericho Conversations series.
We explored Britain's evolving role in global affairs, examining its past, present, and future trajectory. If, in 1946 Britain had lost an empire but was yet to find a role, things are now even more complex for a medium-sized nation trying to go it alone in a very volatile world.
Nick drew from his rich experience as Chair of the Trade Remedies Authority, former UK Ambassador to Turkey, and Chief Executive Officer of UK Trade & Investment. Jericho Partner Matthew Gwyther asked Nick to share his unique insights into the complex narratives surrounding Britain's foreign policy, exploring how historical perspectives have shaped its contemporary role on the world stage.
Jericho Conversations is one of a number of initiatives that spontaneously emerged during the first COVID lockdown – part of a determination to use moments of crisis to pivot towards a better, fairer, more equitable and sustainable future for all. By popular demand, we have reignited the series to help find surprising and refreshing solutions and insights into a world in constant flux. Each conversation – led by an expert speaker – is designed to keep Jericho communities engaged and thinking about “what comes next?” for business and society.
In case you missed it, we recently interviewed Andrew Craig, as part of our Jericho Conversations series.
Andrew Craig, the founder of Plain English Finance, has been featured in numerous national and specialist financial publications including The Mail on Sunday, The Mirror, CityAM, The Spectator, Shares and MoneyWeek magazines, YourMoney, This Is Money, and Money Observer. The third edition of his book, “How to Own the World”, was the best-selling new finance book in the UK for much of 2019.
Andrew's latest book, "Our Future is Biotech," delves into why biotech is the next frontier: our most significant challenges as a species concern biological systems.
For over a century, technology has driven human progress, shaping the way we live, work, and connect. Now, as we face some of the most pressing challenges of our time, biotech emerges as a beacon of hope. From combating formidable diseases like cancer, dementia, obesity, and diabetes, to addressing critical issues in elderly care and mental health, biotech is poised to revolutionise our world.
Jericho Conversations is one of a number of initiatives that spontaneously emerged during the first COVID lockdown – part of a determination to use moments of crisis to pivot towards a better, fairer, more equitable and sustainable future for all. By popular demand, we have reignited the series to help find surprising and refreshing solutions and insights into a world in constant flux. Each conversation – led by an expert speaker – is designed to keep Jericho communities engaged and thinking about “what comes next?” for business and society.
In case you missed it, we recently interviewed Erica Benner, as part of our Jericho Conversations series.
Erica is a political philosopher and historian of ideas who has taught at Oxford, the LSE, and Yale. Adventures in Democracy is the title of Erica's new book which offers insights into the complexities of democracy and provides guidance on how individuals and communities can contribute to its vitality and resilience. It was one of The Financial Times ‘What to read in 2024’. It received a glowing review from The Guardian: ‘a sparkling page-turner full of wit, original insight and unassuming erudition’.
Jericho partner Matthew Gwyther spoke to Erica about the challenges and threats to democracy, including inequality, networked societies, heroes of democracy, populism and the responsibility of businesses and their role in democratic processes.
Jericho Conversations is one of a number of initiatives that spontaneously emerged during the first COVID lockdown – part of a determination to use moments of crisis to pivot towards a better, fairer, more equitable and sustainable future for all. By popular demand, we have reignited the series to help find surprising and refreshing solutions and insights into a world in constant flux. Each conversation – led by an expert speaker – is designed to keep Jericho communities engaged and thinking about “what comes next?” for business and society.
We recently interviewed Sir Geoff Mulgan, as part of our Jericho Conversations series.
Geoff Mulgan is one of our smartest thinkers. He was Director of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (and before that Director of the Performance and Innovation Unit); Director of Policy at 10 Downing Street under British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Co-founder and Director of the London-based think tank Demos (from 1993 to 1998); and Chief adviser to Gordon Brown MP in the early 1990s. Geoff is now a Professor of Collective Intelligence, Social Innovation and Public Policy at University College, London.
When Science Meets Power is the timely title of Sir Geoff Mulgan’s new book, the themes of which were explored in this conversation. Jericho partner Matthew Gwyther spoke to Geoff about big tech and AI, the response to COVID and the future of the relationship between science and politics.
Jericho Conversations is one of a number of initiatives that spontaneously emerged during the first COVID lockdown – part of a determination to use moments of crisis to pivot towards a better, fairer, more equitable and sustainable future for all. By popular demand, we have reignited the series to help find surprising and refreshing solutions and insights into a world in constant flux. Each conversation – led by an expert speaker – is designed to keep Jericho communities engaged and thinking about “what comes next?” for business and society.
In this conversations episode, Matthew Gwyther and Giles Gibbons discuss where sustainability is now, what non-financial audit is likely to mean for corporates in the next few years, what Giles thinks about the ever-increasing squadrons of ESG consultants selling their wares, why Good Business has remained relatively small and what Giles makes of the Bud Lite Trans blow up.
I have known Giles for twenty years during which time I’ve watched corporate responsibility morph into corporate social responsibility and then sustainability and ESG with a bit of “purpose” shoe-horned in.
Good Business has been running for almost three decades and Gibbons bears the scars of many campaigns - from the ill-fated but interesting Big Society project with David Cameron through all his interesting work in the food and hospitality industry and work with big corporates like GSK, Disney, Coca Cola and The Gates Foundation.
Giles knows what he’s talking about which is why I must have interviewed him half a dozen times. He's normally my first port of call as a journalist writing about these issues. He gives great, authentic and uncompromising quotes which are always free of word salad flannel with a greenwash dressing.
But he is still pushing and has recently written "We’ve gone from pushing water uphill to a time where social and environmental issues are an essential part of the mainstream business landscape".
We’re now reaching a point where delivering the change becomes much harder. Businesses have taken the (relatively) easy steps. The actions they need to take next are harder. They require more substantive change and in some cases significant capital expenditure. At the same time, the buffer put in place by the relative success of their sustainability action so far is protecting the business from the kind of exposure and criticism that would galvanise decision-makers. So action is stalling.
In our conversation about where sustainability is now, we discuss what non-financial audit is likely to mean for corporates in the next few years, what he thinks about the ever-increasing squadrons of ESG consultants selling their wares, why Good Business has remained relatively small and what he makes of the Bud Lite Trans blow up.
The latest podcast in the Ahead of the Curves series, supported by Stifel Europe, is on the subject of Experts and Expertise.
Responding to an AI enthusiast who had Tweeted a picture of 'what the rest of the Mona Lisa looked like' the picture above appeared as a response with the caption - "Ever wonder what Venus de Milo's Arms look like? With the power of AI our team has recreated it."AI promises many things, most of which involve taking over from experts, professionals, and even great sculptors. Is it getting too smart for its own good? And is our judgment - borne of years of sometimes bitter experience - going to see it heavily regulated?
How can you tell when you’re dealing with a genuine expert? Real expertise must pass three tests. First, it must lead to performance that is consistently superior to that of the expert’s peers. Second, real expertise produces concrete results. Brain surgeons, for example, must be skilful with their scalpels but must also have successful outcomes with their patients. A chess player must be able to win matches in tournaments. Finally, true expertise can be replicated and measured in the lab. As the British scientist Lord Kelvin stated, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
We’ve interviewed three experts in their fields - three individuals at the top of their professional game. They are intentionally diverse: psychology, investment banking and paediatric surgery. If - for whatever reason - you venture into their fields - they come heartily recommend. (I must apologize that they are all men. It just worked out like that. And it won’t happen again) What I’ve asked all three of them is first, what the nature of their expertise consists of, secondly how they acquired that superior competence and thirdly if they feel that the advent of Artificial Intelligence - Chat GPT and its spawn - will mean that their like becomes redundant in years to come. Will their like get chucked onto the scrap heap of history?
Dr Tomas Chamorrow-Premuzic is a psychologist and professor of Business Psychology at Columbia University. His new book I Human is about AI and questions what makes us Homo sapiens unique.
Gareth Hunt is an investment banker at Stifel and leads their Law Firms and Litigation Finance advisory team in Investment Banking. He’s especially interested in how artificial intelligence might erode the status and need for professionals including lawyers.
Bruce Richard is a retired paediatric surgeon who specialised in the repair of cleft lip and palate in children. It took him a long while to become an expert in his field. He talks about robotics in surgery and the difficulties of passing on that expertise to coming generations of surgeons in training. We even get to discuss the medical ethics and in and outs of The Brazilian Butt Lift.
Time stamps:
Martin Wolf 1.35
Nouriel Roubini 27.37
Ben Page 51.10
Eithne O' Leary 66.14
The latest podcast in this series supported by Stifel is on the subject of the crisis of democratic capitalism. This is the title of the new book by The Financial Times’ lead economics commentator Martin Wolf. His book analyzes in great detail what he thinks has gone wrong with the system used by most of us in the free West. It’s a great read and he shows us how citizenship and a shared faith in the common good are not just romantic slogans but the only ideas that can sustain political and economic freedom. There’s plenty of Abraham Lincoln in there from “of the people, by the people, for the people” to his wonderful expression about using “the better angels of our nature.”
These themes are also discussed with star economist, Nouriel Roubini aka Doctor Doom. His recently published book Megathreats - the ten trends that imperil our future and how to survive them isn’t a barrel of laughs and not for those of an anxious disposition. But he did come up with an extraordinary explanation for why China will own Siberia in years to come - Siberian women prefer Chinese guys because they’re not permanently drunk and have better financial prospects.
To balance these commentators we have some real world wisdom from someone who has to run a European business in 2023. Eithne O'Leary, the President of Stifel, Europe is more optimistic that with some Abe Lincolnesque spirit our system can pull through before it tears itself apart. And old friend of Jericho, Ben Page, now the global CEO of Ipsos-Mori tells us what the world is thinking at ground level. 72% of his global survey group think their government will "let them down" in the future. (And that includes people polled within authoritarian regimes like China.) Almost 6 out of ten think yesterday was better than today. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
An Interview with Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, US Business Editor at the Financial TimesThis latest conversation is part of Jericho’s work to launch a new Business and Democracy Commission in 2023. We will ask difficult questions, break new ground, explore whether there is a new consensus and set out practical steps for a more effective corporate and business role in this fast-changing democratic and political context. Please do get in touch if you would like to find out more.
Until 2018, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson was US news editor, directing all US coverage and helping steer the FT’s strategic evolution to a digital-first newsroom. In his reporting and commentary, Andrew has charted the emergence of a new corporate consensus around the role purpose-driven businesses should play in society, and the pushback from sceptics worried about corporate overreach, greenwashing and “woke capitalism”. His past roles over 24 years with the FT in New York and London include global media editor, deputy news editor and editor of its management features section.
The business community can no longer avoid engaging with the thorny issue of democracy, both in terms of whether democracy functions in ways helpful to social and environmental developments and how businesses themselves should behave as democratic actors. The two are clearly linked. Matthew Gwyther asked Andrew about Business’ unique relationship to Democracy.
If you want to understand this incredible geopolitical moment then Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy, is your person. Steeped in the history of how global energy interests and finance policy have interacted to shape the 21st century – not least in Ukraine – Helen offers an unrivalled analysis of the times we live in.
Helen has been at Cambridge since 1994. Her current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century. She was a regular panellist on the influential Talking Politics podcast and is a columnist for the New Statesman.
In her latest book Disorder, Helen explains why we in the West, live in the political times we do. Disorder has won praise from the likes of Diane Coyle and Adam Tooze who says “Defty weaving together the history of energy, economics, and politics, Disorder restores depth to contemporary history”.
As glaciers melt and dodgy peddlers of cryptocurrency go bust, we hear a lot about the “E” and “G” in ESG but rarely the “S” which is the essential jam in the sandwich. It’s the stranded middle child. Even classifying exactly what it means is complicated and open to widely differing interpretations. And even when benchmarks are created, how on earth do you measure it?
This podcast is about what the “S” means for employees especially those who are at the bottom of the pecking order and are being heavily squeezed in the cost-of-living crisis. What is the relationship between business and its people within the supply chain – many of whom may be on the other side of the world? In an increasingly fractured society, business has a unique platform to make a difference and young talent are looking to work for organisations with integrity and purpose. Unjustifiably large pay gaps and fat-cattery may be coming back to bite hard.
On the other side of the coin, while business may feel it wants to do the right thing and act in an enlightened modern 21st century way, but can that relationship become too close? Have things gone too far when an organisation offers to freeze its young employee’s eggs? Do people want this level of emotional intimacy with their employer or do they have every right to say, “This is totally none of your business Mr Boss Man?”
The programme features interviews with three experts who have been thinking through these issues.
Firstly, Baroness Wheatcroft, a journalist and life peeress who was former editor-in-chief at the Wall Street Journal in Europe. She now chairs the Oversight Committee of the Financial Times and the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions and sits on the boards of St James’s Place and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Next, we have Penny De Valk, who has a long history of experience working in what HR people call the “people space”. She is now a digital nomad – with a large following for her executive coaching and mentoring practice which specialises in bringing women up the executive leadership ladder.
And finally, Eithne O’Leary, President of Stifel Europe leads and is responsible for 400 people who work in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.
The first Jericho Conversation of 2022 took place on April 21st. We were joined by Bill Browder, New York Times Bestseller and the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, which was the investment adviser to the largest foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005 when Bill was denied entry to the country and declared a “threat to national security” as a result of his battle against corporate corruption.
In 2018 Bill joined us for an evening of conversation asking how scared should we be of Putin? The answer, now very apparent, is extremely! You can listen to that podcast here.
Bill’s latest book ‘Freezing Order’ is a gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy. We look forward to hearing his latest thoughts on the current situation in Ukraine, and how this might play out socially, politically and economically.
Post-Covid what does the future of healthcare look like?
Nick Moore is the Managing Director, Biopharma, Healthcare, Stifel and has more than 20 years’ experience in the Healthcare industry. He trained originally as a medical doctor at Cambridge University and Harvard Medical School.
In December 2013, Nicholas was named as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Rising Stars in Investment Banking by Financial News, partly in recognition of the more than 20 equity capital markets transactions he completed in 2013 alone. Since mid-2013, Nicholas has focused on raising equity capital for European healthcare companies, especially those companies in the biopharma subsector targeting investment from U.S.-based healthcare specialist investors.
In this wide-ranging podcast interview he talks about the effects of the covid pandemic, how you learn to back winners within healthcare, the profound changes coming down the line in the practice of medicine and the gulf between research and getting new treatments to the patient.
How do we ensure the nexus of technology, common sense and wellbeing to target today's challenges of an ageing population, chronic illness, mental health, loneliness and isolation? How do we spend health money better and more intelligently? When it comes to increasingly complex diagnostics what's the best way to the most positive outcomes? What about getting less ill in the first place?
This podcast interviews five individuals. Interestingly, three of the five are qualified doctors all of whom chose to give up clinical practice
The five are: Professor Karol Sikora, Chief Medical Officer at Rutherford Health and formerly an NHS and consultant; Dr Ceri Morgan, head of late stage portfolio at Oxford Science Enterprises; Dr Nicholas Moore, Managing Director for Biopharma at Stifel; Matthew Taylor, head of the NHS Confederation and Tom Hockaday, one of the country's experts in university tech transfer.
Few require telling we are living in a strange and unsettling time. A time when health is at the forefront of all our minds.
Samantha Mangwana practices employment law in Sydney, Australia. She qualified and practised in London where she developed a strong reputation conducting very high profile whistleblowing and discrimination against financial institutions, and less visibly, acting for partners in their disputes with global law firms. She knows what makes lawyers tick.
Anthony May was the founder of Hedley May, a high end corporate headhunter with a specialism in the legal profession. He founded Catalyst Lex in 2021 to advise major law firms on their most challenging and sensitive decisions and he advised law firms, Big Four accountancy firms, FTSE 100 corporates, financial institutions and Government entities on leadership projects since 1993.
Gareth Hunt leads the Law Firms and Litigation Finance advisory team in Investment Banking at Stifel in London and is one of the sharpest outside observers of the legal profession in the UK. He was one of the team that successfully raised DWF’s initial public offering, from which it raised £95m at a valuation of £366 million which made it the biggest UK law firm to list in the last decade.
Giles Gibbons can make a reasonable claim to have invented ESG consulting in the United Kingdom. He founded Good Business with his then partner Steve Hilton way back when the talk was of Corporate Social Responsibility. He believes professionals worldwide have a public duty to step up, find a public interest calling and help solve the greatest challenge of our age, climate change.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe, with Stifel CEO Eithne O'Leary
For further information or to get involved, please contact Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe, with Stifel CEO Eithne O'Leary
For further information or to get involved, please contact Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe, with Stifel CEO Eithne O'Leary
For further information or to get involved, please contact Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe, with Stifel CEO Eithne O'Leary
For further information or to get involved, please contact Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
In this podcast produced by Jericho in association with Barclays LifeSkills, we interviewed three individuals from very different backgrounds. Ricardo Ennis who is 19 and a Lambeth Youth Councillor; Francesca Bilocca, a graduate from Durham University who is currently hunting for a job; and Iona Bain, one of the UK’s youngest experts on young people and finance. In the interviews, our guests speak about many topics: money and status, materialism, budgeting, the relationship between thrift and sustainability, Peak Stuff and student debt.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
As a nation, the Brits have been through quite a bit over the last year. A sort of late midlife health and emotional crisis. The twin demons of pandemic and Brexit have scarred and divided us. But what is the collective mindset that led to the Brexit vote? And how have our values determined how we have coped with the pandemic: the wishes and needs of the individual do not always coincide with those of the group, our nation. Face masks don’t just protect us they are intended to safeguard others. How has pandemic changed our values and priorities - both on a personal and public level? Or will it be back to business as usual once we are all vaccinated?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus three book authors and a young, American colleague of Eithne’s who has only recently joined the bank after completing a Masters at LSE in London.
Professor Angie Hobbs is one of the UK’s most sparkling and life-enhancing academics. About as far removed from a dusty university garett as possible - yet without succumbing to the crass populism and over exposure of other TV Profs - she is a Cambridge-trained classicist, and Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Wildly popular among her students, she has even appeared on Desert island Discs. Her interview tells us what Plato would have made of that would-be classicist Boris Johnson who has a bust of Pericles in his office. What the Stoics and Epicureans can teach us about coping with pandemic - they had many plagues in Ancient Greece - and how the fashionable cult of mindfulness has been around for more than two thousand years. And sovereignty and freedom...would the average ancient Greek in his sandals have voted Leave?
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
As a nation, the Brits have been through quite a bit over the last year. A sort of late midlife health and emotional crisis. The twin demons of pandemic and Brexit have scarred and divided us. But what is the collective mindset that led to the Brexit vote? And how have our values determined how we have coped with the pandemic: the wishes and needs of the individual do not always coincide with those of the group, our nation. Face masks don’t just protect us they are intended to safeguard others. How has pandemic changed our values and priorities - both on a personal and public level? Or will it be back to business as usual once we are all vaccinated?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus three book authors and a young, American colleague of Eithne’s who has only recently joined the bank after completing a Masters at LSE in London.
To understand where we are, claims Sathnam Sanghera, you have to comprehend where we’ve been as a nation. And indeed, the grim things we’ve done. Sanghera's book Empireland just published has caused a huge stir and shot to number 2 in The Sunday Times bestseller list. It has annoyed many on the “patriotic” Right very much. Sanghera places Brexit in a continuum of a Brit exceptionalism, a mindset that is convinced that we remain Top Nation despite the globe containing rather fewer nations coloured in pink than it did in 1918. Until we come to terms with our history and find the true strengths of a multi-cultural identity, he suggests, then we’ll remain in the death grip of an inexorable reputational and economic decline.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
As a nation, the Brits have been through quite a bit over the last year. A sort of late midlife health and emotional crisis. The twin demons of pandemic and Brexit have scarred and divided us. But what is the collective mindset that led to the Brexit vote? And how have our values determined how we have coped with the pandemic: the wishes and needs of the individual do not always coincide with those of the group, our nation. Face masks don’t just protect us they are intended to safeguard others. How has pandemic changed our values and priorities - both on a personal and public level? Or will it be back to business as usual once we are all vaccinated?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus three book authors and a young, American colleague of Eithne’s who has only recently joined the bank after completing a Masters at LSE in London.
The author, academic and critic Stephen Bayley’s new book is called Value: Thirty Conversations on What Money Can’t buy.”It is more ludic a work than Sanghera’s but none the less important for it. Where Satham deals with the big, national and political Bayley looks at the personal, the intimate and how our values have been appraised by the pandemic or The Great Isolation, as he calls it. His work is “an elegiac account of what has been recently lost in the digital apocalypse. But also as steadfastly enthusiastic and optimistic look at what we can regain in a post-viral more analogue and more thoughtful world.” “Since the industrial revolution,” he writes. “When everything ran by clockwork, people have understood how important it is to live in the moment. But over time our world has grown increasingly busy and we’ve lost the ability to truly savour each unique experience and the simple pleasures the world has to offer.” And on Big Tech which has become even bigger in the last 12 months, he pulls no punches. “Apple? A huge and cynically manipulative organisation. Far worse than General Motors ever was.”
Stephen Bayley’s final paragraph in his book contains a lot of good sense: “you need to keep asking questions. Cultivate the senses. And enjoy the mysterious glory of the everyday. Because that is all we’ve got. And there is huge value to be had in realising and enjoying that.”
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
As a nation, the Brits have been through quite a bit over the last year. A sort of late midlife health and emotional crisis. The twin demons of pandemic and Brexit have scarred and divided us. But what is the collective mindset that led to the Brexit vote? And how have our values determined how we have coped with the pandemic: the wishes and needs of the individual do not always coincide with those of the group, our nation. Face masks don’t just protect us they are intended to safeguard others. How has pandemic changed our values and priorities - both on a personal and public level? Or will it be back to business as usual once we are all vaccinated?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus three book authors to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future. Mindful that the young sometimes lack a voice - and have the potential to be the big victims of the pandemic, Brexit and climate change - he also spoke to Madison Kominski a young, American colleague of Eithne’s who has only recently joined the bank after completing a Masters at LSE in London.
Madison Kominski is in her mid-20s and only joined Stifel last September. This means she’s in the unusual position of many graduate trainees currently and never met many of her work colleagues face-to-face. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and the London School of Economics and has a particular interest in sustainable finance and impact investing. She knows her generation has much to do as it approaches the time when it takes the reins of power.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
As a nation, the Brits have been through quite a bit over the last year. A sort of late midlife health and emotional crisis. The twin demons of pandemic and Brexit have scarred and divided us. But what is the collective mindset that led to the Brexit vote? And how have our values determined how we have coped with the pandemic: the wishes and needs of the individual do not always coincide with those of the group, our nation. Face masks don’t just protect us they are intended to safeguard others. How has pandemic changed our values and priorities - both on a personal and public level? Or will it be back to business as usual once we are all vaccinated?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus three book authors and a young, American colleague of Eithne’s who has only recently joined the bank after completing a Masters at LSE in London.
Eithne O’Leary, President of Stifel Europe considers the lasting effects of The Great Crash when financial services and some wayward values brought the world to disaster. She also talks about how leadership of a business has adapted during COVID.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
Brexit may be of great import to us but maybe not such hot news for the rest of the world. COVID is a much more immediate, pressing issue across the globe than the UK’s new adventure. So what is The View From Abroad as far as how the UK has dealt with the twin demons of Brexit and COVID are concerned?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future.
Sylvain Fort is French and has worked as a close advisor to his President Emmanuael Macron. What do the French - and especially Macron - really think of us Brits and the path on which we’re now embarked. “Well, we have an expression that you cannot spit in the soup and expect it to taste good,’ he says. Fort says that Brexit is a huge gamble, a bet that he would not have advised we take.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
Brexit may be of great import to us but maybe not such hot news for the rest of the world. COVID is a much more immediate, pressing issue across the globe than the UK’s new adventure. So what is The View From Abroad as far as how the UK has dealt with the twin demons of Brexit and COVID are concerned?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future.
Ravi Mattu was born in Canada of Indian heritage and worked for a decade for the FT in London before being posted to Hong Kong where he is deputy news editor for Asia. Thus he is perfectly placed objectively to deduce what Britain and being British might mean post-Brexit. The FT has been probably the most anti-Brexit of all British media and Mattu questions the logic and veracity of the Leave argument. In his interview, he warns that the UK’s tortuous struggles over leaving the EU are greeted in Asia with a mixture of bemusement and indifference. “London’s challenges are now huge and it’s a very different place to the city in which I arrived way back in 1997.”
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
Brexit may be of great import to us but maybe not such hot news for the rest of the world. COVID is a much more immediate, pressing issue across the globe than the UK’s new adventure. So what is The View From Abroad as far as how the UK has dealt with the twin demons of Brexit and COVID are concerned?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future.
Stephen Sackur is one of the BBC’s most experienced reporters and presenters. His Hard Talk programme on BBC World means he can hardly walk down the street in Islamabad, Mexico City or Dubai without being mobbed by admirers. Sackur has been based in Washington, Cairo, Eastern Europe and Brussels. He has a strong sense of how we are perceived by those from abroad. In his interview which ranges broadly across politics, Big Tech regulation, soft power and fake news he warns, “those die-hard Remainers who just won’t let go are on a one-way ticket to insanity.”
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
Brexit may be of great import to us but maybe not such hot news for the rest of the world. COVID is a much more immediate, pressing issue across the globe than the UK’s new adventure. So what is The View From Abroad as far as how the UK has dealt with the twin demons of Brexit and COVID are concerned?
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future.
Lama Daher is a Lebanese tech entrepreneur. She worked indirectly for the British government when she was a co-founder of the UK/Lebanon Tech Hub in Beirut, a good example of our soft power being properly exercised abroad Life has been tough in Lebanon over the last year - the huge and destructive explosion in the Beirut docks in August, the country is nearly bankrupt and COVID is raging. And we think we have problems in Blighty.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future.
This podcast is part of The Double-Wicked Challenge; COVID and Brexit conversation series, curated by Jericho on behalf of Stifel Europe.
For further information or to get involved, please contact Jericho Founder, Robert Phillips or Programme Director, Becky Holloway.
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future. The interviewees were Antony Jenkins, Vicky Pryce, Claer Barrett and Professor John Van Reenan of the London School of Economics.
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future. The interviewees were Antony Jenkins, Vicky Pryce, Claer Barrett and Professor John Van Reenan of the London School of Economics.
Antony Jenkins has had a life long career in financial services. He spent many years at Barclays and was Group CEO from 2012 to 2015. He now runs, and largely owns, the fintech 10x . He was probably the most sanguine of our interviewees. “Business people hate uncertainty most of all,” he says and the current situation is full of that. “But we’ll find a way to make it work because that’s what business does.” Business tends to be pragmatic rather than ideological which is why – by any poll – the majority of UK business has always thought Brexit a bad idea.
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future. The interviewees were Antony Jenkins, Vicky Pryce, Claer Barrett and Professor John Van Reenan of the London School of Economics.
Professor John Van Reenan is the Ronald Coase School Professor at the London School of Economics and the Gordon Y. Billiard Professor of Management and Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is jointly appointed in the Department of Economics and the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is an outspoken critic of both Brexit and the way the UK government has handled the COVID crisis. Any deal with the EU, he has written, will be “lipstick on a pig.”
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future. The interviewees were Antony Jenkins, Vicky Pryce, Claer Barrett and Professor John Van Reenan of the London School of Economics.
Vicky Pryce is a Greek by birth but has lived in the UK for many years. She has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as an economist in both the private sector and government service. During the Great Crash she was Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service from 2007 to 2010.
She has no doubt that the UK will be disadvantaged by Brexit. “While economists assume rational behaviour in most people but that doesn’t count for politics. I think the most fervent Brexiteers expect the EU to disintegrate following the UK’s departure – that this is the first act of the tragedy. But I would not forecast that. If anything, COVID may have brought them closer together. They seem unified if not united.”
In the latest in its series of podcasts supported by the investment bank Stifel and its European President Eithne O’Leary, Jericho Chambers Partner, Matthew Gwyther speaks to Eithne plus four observers of the UK scene to hear their feelings about the last year and what now lies ahead for Britain as it faces an uncertain future. The interviewees were Antony Jenkins, Vicky Pryce, Claer Barrett and Professor John Van Reenan of the London School of Economics.
Claer Barrett is Consumer Editor at The Financial Times and author of a weekly Money Clinic podcast. She never thought she’d live to see the day when FT readers contact her for help with the UK benefits system. But that become an unpleasant reality in 2020. “The Great Crash of 2008 felt like the end of days to me,” she says. “But this is different and in some ways feels worse as covid is a social not a monetary phenomenon. People are dying.”
Although at a substantially reduced risk from the disease itself, the collateral damage caused by COVID has hit the young very hard. Not just economically but psychologically. Their education has been hugely disrupted and their job prospects once they leave education are now dimmer than for a generation.
There are over nine-and-a-half million children and young people in the UK aged between 10-24. To say that their futures are currently uncertain is an understatement. Their education, their prospects for work, their freedom to move around and associate with their peers and others. And, most importantly for many, the future of the planet. A lot to endure.
To gauge how the young are feeling about their futures and how they regard the job that their elders are making of running the world this podcast by Matthew Gwyther talks to three young people:
- Ahmed Ibrahim on the university system
- Morgan Howe on the disappointment of schools (exams, not life skills) and meaningful employment
- Leonora on creativity and climate change
The latest in the series of Jericho Conversations podcasts finds Jericho founder Robert Phillips in thoughtful discussion with Indy Johar, widely celebrated as one of the UK’s foremost system designers and thinkers. This is not a recession, argues Indy, but a trigger-point for a much wider systems re-set that challenges centuries-old orthodoxies of economics, politics and leadership. There is an urgent need for true leadership to emerge beyond just the reactive nature of what we have seen in the crisis so far – because “not leading is not an option”.
“This isn’t a voluntary transition moment, I think it’s actually whether you’re viable in the next economy. This is not a moral crusade, it’s an operational model in a new society where interdependence is more valuable and more critical”.
Indy is an architect by training and the creator of multiple Impact Hubs. Dark Matter, his latest venture, is a field laboratory focused on radically redesigning the bureaucratic & institutional infrastructure of cities, regions and towns for a more democratic, distributed great transition – with offices and teams advising governments in Canada, Sweden and South Korea as well as the UK. Indy brings a truly global perspective – and scenarios and future models – to the current crisis.
This podcast – the second in the series in partnership with Stifel Europe - looks into Artificial Intelligence and disruptive change.
The COVID crisis is giving many pause to consider disruption. Especially, that brought about by tech and AI. We all wonder about the direction in which it’s taking us.
Track and Trace for example, is a new concept to most of us and would have been impossible to enact even a decade back. But now it is unquestionably a vital weapon in the fight against the pandemic. What are its ethical limits? To what extent are some tech disruptors creating Frankenstein’s monsters without realising the full consequences?
More broadly, is there a danger of sleep-walking into another crisis, partly tech-enabled, such as the great financial crash of 2008? How does the disruptive forward march of technology and the imminence of AI change the way we think and behave as leaders? What are the implications for regulatory frameworks?
The podcast discusses these challenges with a number of acclaimed experts.
First, Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, who could probably be called one of the godfathers of AI in the UK. Now Master of Jesus College Oxford, he’s a long-time friend and associate of Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web. Together, the pair founded the Open Data Institute.
Second, is Mikael Down, who is Executive Director at the Banking Standards Board. Mikael is an economist by training but has worked at the UK Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority; he’s now doing a PHD on AI. Mikael is especially interested in artificial intelligence and how it works in financial services. So, what does he think about algorithmic injustice which has been put right back onto the agenda by the recent Black Lives Matter protests?
Third, Ivana Bartoletti is Technical Director at Deloitte with a special interest in data privacy. She’s just published her book ‘An Artificial Revolution’ on power, politics and AI: a hard-hitting feminist critique of many practices in the tech world.
Finally, Bruce Daisley. One rarely gets the chance to quiz those at the top of Big Tech but Bruce, who recently stepped down as EMEA Vice-President of Twitter, has stepped up to the Jericho plate. He runs the top business podcast ‘Eat. Sleep. Work. Repeat.’ His first book, about improving work and work culture, was a Sunday Times No.1 Bestseller and he’s currently writing another book on identity and resilience.
Welcome to the second in the series of The Trust Delusion podcasts. The project, running across 2020, explores how businesses can earn trust authentically and legitimately; busting many myths (and exposing some dodgy data) along the way. Added context, poignancy and urgency is provided by the COVID-19 crisis and the tumultuous impact on business, politics and personal lives.
In this episode, hosted by award-winning journalist and Jericho Partner, Matthew Gwyther, listen to:
- Bestselling author, Margaret Heffernan, who blazed a trail with her books Wilful Blindness and, more recently, Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together – with its prescient insights into pandemics and crisis preparedness – with a cry for competence as a cornerstone of trust:
"I would much rather be operated on by a competent heart surgeon, than one who is good at marketing."
- Costcutter Supermarkets Group Chief Executive, Darcy Wilson-Rymer, whose national grocery chain of over 2,000 shops is on the retail frontline of the Coronavirus pandemic
"We don’t know where the chips are going to fall post-crisis but when they do fall business is very good at picking it up, finding the opportunity and running with it - and that will effectively create a new normal for trust."
- Jane McCormick, Global Head of Tax & Legal Services at KPMG – where auditors, accountants and advisors have been in the bullseye of the trust storm in recent years
"We’re now seeing a lot more collaboration between groups – this isn’t government vs. business. It’s government with business and civil society working together. Groups that have been somewhat polarised having a shared purpose and coming together".
- Professor Veronica Hope-Hailey, University of Bath and former Dean of the School of Management, one of the world’s foremost authorities on trust data and trustworthy behaviour – why honesty must trump hyperbole, from business leaders living in “the la la land of always sunny uplands."
“Leadership has become a scripted performance art, poorly excused by an obsession with increasing returns and shareholder value”
You can read more about The Trust Delusion project here. Tune-in to the first episode in the series. And catch-up on Jericho’s thinking on the Holy Trinity of Trust, Purpose and Engagement.
If you would like to find out more and/ or work with Jericho, please get in touch.
Computer says 'no.' And sometimes it says 'yes.' But what are the risks with allowing AI to make important decisions on all our behalfs. The first in our series of Ethics of Disruption podcasts looks how going back to basic rules of philosophy might help untangle modern Gordian knots.This podcast in the series looks into the theory and practice of the Ethics of AI and speaks to three experts. First, Professor Dominic Houlder of London Business School. Although a professor of strategy in his day job, Houlder has recently published a book called “What Philosophy Can Teach you about being a Better Leader.” Second up is Nikolas Kairinos, an expert whose companies produce AI and the founder of Fountech.ai. Third, Professor Joanna Bryson, who is Professor of Ethics and Technology at the Hertie School in Berlin. Her research focuses on the impact of technology on human cooperation, and AI/ICT governance. The presenter is Matthew Gwyther.
In the first of six Trust Delusion podcasts, hosted by Matthew Gwyther, listen to Ben Page, Prof. Bobby Duffy, Baroness Onora O’Neil and Sir Ian Cheshire agree that the so-called “crisis of trust” is mostly over-blown – often deliberately – and not supported by long-term data. Too often it is used, somewhat cynically, only to support marketing efforts. Trustworthiness is more important – with honesty, competence and reliability as benchmarks – as is serving the customer and employee first. Addressing the climate emergency and tech disruption takes precedence over abstract notions of “trust”. Business leaders need to be accountable and look long and hard at the culture of their organisations – a point reinforced by 22-year old Chantale Phinda… who totally trusts Greta Thunberg and her mission.
Damian Collins, the chairman of the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport sub committee is a born crusader. A blue-suited bruiser who has locked horns with Dominic Cummings, Jeremy Kyle and Aaron Banks, Collins is a vocal proponent of tighter online regulation, he believes social media companies should provide more information about who controls popular online groups and channels, and should be made to step in when “known lies” are spread.
Facebook in particular has come under his committee's scrutiny amid concerns that Russia used the platform to influence the 2016 Brexit referendum and the many vagaries of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Last year Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg was summoned to appear before the committee but refused. Collins responded by sending the sergeant at arms to the hotel room of a software executive and seizing relevant emails from the man's laptop.
Currently on the stump fighting to retain his Folkstone constituency in this interview with Jericho's Matthew Gwyther Collins reveals what he'd do to put the "digital gangsters" in their place.
To find out more about the Social Justice in Tech or other Jericho programmes, please get in touch. To subscribe to Jericho podcasts, click here. To work with Jericho as a client, please drop us a line or give us a call.
The US is home to 15 of the world’s 20 most valuable tech firms. In Europe we have one. Big Tech is unquestionably a stateside thing. Silicon Valley is where the smart ideas find the most willing piles of money. America is also where controversy rages loudly over how to bring the tech giants to heel, so that they act in the public interest. Tech tycoons have faced roastings in Washington for their firms’ privacy lapses. Elizabeth Warren, a senator who is running for president in 2020, wants Facebook to be broken up. She wants a platform utility to be defined as any internet entity with global revenues over $25 billion.
In Europe the recently re-appointed competition commissioner Margaret Vestager has said: “we’re trying to get a hold on this industrial revolution that’s happening right now...it’s very important to get up to speed quickly.”
The author Franklin Foer has argued that tech is different from the sort of monopolies run by robber baron oil tycoons and bankers in the previous two centuries. “More than any previous coterie of corporations , the tech monopolies aspire to mould humanity into their desired image of it. They believe that they have the opportunity to complete the long merger between man and machine - to redirect the trajectory of human evolution.”
The heat is on. Eric Schmidt, who recently left the board of Alphabet, said during his tenure as executive chairman : “I wake up in the morning and I fight regulation. It’s what I do. It’s my job.” His company has now been censured and fined by the EU three times since 2014 and earlier this year got a ticket for $1.7 billion. The share price went up.
When it comes to competition Big Tech likes to muscle out or acquire any threatening minnows with promising ideas. The FANGS hoovered up 436 companies in the last ten years. Where the argument was once - “It’s free! How can we be anti-competitive if customers aren’t paying for our service” is heard less frequently these days.
So, what is to be done? Governments are frequently ham-fisted when it comes to regulating industries about which they have scant understanding. Where has the trust gone?
This podcast includes interviews with Eithne O’Leary, President of SNEL and head of Group, London, Stifel and also Peter Globokar of Stifel; Baroness Denise Kingsmill one time Deputy Chair of the UK Competition and counsel in anti-trust matters to Microsoft; Sir John Hegarty, one of Britain’s most esteemed ad men and now early stage tech investor; and Rachel Coldicott, CEO of the think tank doteveryone.
To find out more about the Social Justice in Tech or other Jericho programmes, please get in touch. To subscribe to Jericho podcasts, click here. To work with Jericho as a client, please drop us a line or give us a call.
From youth to lengthy experience: how do we shape the future of our built environment?
Interviews with Paul Morrell (ex-Building Czar), Peter Caplehorn (CPA), Gwyn Roberts, Gillian Charlesworth (both BRE Group), Joseph Daniels (Project Etopia).To find out more about Frameworks to Build a Better Britain or other Jericho programmes, please get in touch. To subscribe to Jericho podcasts, click here. To work with Jericho as a client, please drop us a line or give us a call.
Ahead of the Stifel/ Jericho roundtable looking at the issues of Tech: Men, Women and Social Justice, this podcast looks specifically at the accusation that the industry has done very badly on the diversity front with all sorts of negative consequences.
It includes interviews with Eithne O’Leary and Thom Weisel of Stifel, Check Warner of Diversity VC, Margaret Heffernan, Caroline Plumb and ex-minister of state Ed Vaizey. It’s presented by Jericho partner Matthew Gwyther.
To find out more about the Social Justice in Tech or other Jericho programmes, please get in touch. To subscribe to Jericho podcasts, click here. To work with Jericho as a client, please drop us a line or give us a call.
Big Givers: Interview with Primary Shakespeare, Redthread and MAMA Youth Project by Jericho Chambers
The ex-CEO of BT spent an hour in conversation with Jericho Partner Matthew Gwyther discussing:- his leadership style and methods as CEO; his tussles with OFCOM; why doing business in Italy is so tricky; the highs and lows of running one of the FTSE 100’s most prominent companies; and the pressures on his family. He also reveals why he didn’t fancy running the Premier League, whether Huawei is a security risk to our nation and how he deals at every dinner party he attends about the shortcomings of diners’ broadband speeds. And why he thinks the intense heat surrounding FTSE CEO pay may lead more talent into the cooler but more lucrative shadows of private equity: ” I didn’t think I was particularly well paid. I sat towards the bottom end of the [pay] range.”
To find out more about 'An Evening with...' or other Jericho series, please get in touch. To subscribe to Jericho podcasts, click here. To work with Jericho as a client, please drop us a line or give us a call.
The ex-CEO of BT spent an hour in conversation with Jericho Partner Matthew Gwyther discussing:- his leadership style and methods as CEO; his tussles with OFCOM; why doing business in Italy is so tricky; the highs and lows of running one of the FTSE 100’s most prominent companies; and the pressures on his family. He also reveals why he didn’t fancy running the Premier League, whether Huawei is a security risk to our nation and how he deals at every dinner party he attends about the shortcomings of diners’ broadband speeds. And why he thinks the intense heat surrounding FTSE CEO pay may lead more talent into the cooler but more lucrative shadows of private equity: ” I didn’t think I was particularly well paid. I sat towards the bottom end of the [pay] range.”
To find out more about 'An Evening with...' or other Jericho series, please get in touch. To subscribe to Jericho podcasts, click here. To work with Jericho as a client, please drop us a line or give us a call.
The ex-CEO of Sainsbury's and current Vice Chairman of Terra Firma spent an hour in conversation with Jericho partner Matthew Gwyther. One of Britain’s most thoughtful business leaders, King talks frankly about the state of UK retail, the plight of the high street, the difference between running a FTSE 100 company and being in private equity, the problem of taxing Big Tech and how he went from being a salesman with a sample suitcase full of Haagen Dazs to one of the UK's Most Admired business leaders. What he'd have done if he'd become the supremo in Formula 1 and the ups and downs of working alongside with the controversial private equity supremo Guy Hands.The interview is divided into two separate podcasts in which he deals with the following questions:Part One:Are you glad you're not running a supermarket now?What would you do at the moment, you must have thought about things you'd change?Do you think what's going on in the high street is uniquely difficult or is it cyclical?How did you know that Tesco was running too hot?What about booking sales before they happen?Did they have a particular bullying culture at Tesco?How much did it annoy you that they were so much bigger than you and you couldn't catch them?What can be done with M&S, is it saveable?You're not convinced by Ocado and delivery, tell me why it doesn't work for you?
The ex-CEO of Sainsbury’s and current Vice Chairman of Terra Firma spent an hour in conversation with Jericho partner Matthew Gwyther. One of Britain’s most thoughtful business leaders, King talks frankly about the state of UK retail, the plight of the high street, the difference between running a FTSE 100 company and being in private equity, the problem of taxing Big Tech and how he went from being a salesman with a sample suitcase full of Haagen Dazs to one of the UK’s Most Admired business leaders. What he’d have done if he’d become the supremo in Formula 1 and the ups and downs of working alongside with the controversial private equity supremo Guy Hands.The interview is divided into two separate podcasts in which he deals with the following questions:Part TwoWhat’s the difference between leading a FTSE100 and being a boss of a private equity firm, and which bits do you like of the former and latter?Private Equity doesn’t help itself. Well-read readers of the FT might understand its benefits but I don’t think it’s done a very good job of selling itself to the broader public as a way of running businesses has it?What’s Guy Hands like to work with?Do you fight and who becomes between you when you do?Tell us your ideas about increasing VAT and cutting business rates?George Osborne and the minimum wage Brexit, How will it pan out?
Fifty years ago society’s reverence for the professional classes was almost a given, but those days are gone. Restrictive practices and a reluctance to accept reform have contributed to a loss of public trust and respect. Lawyers and doctors don’t stand on the pedestal they once did. When companies such as BHS and Carillion go down, for example, blame is often placed on accountants – professional accreditations notwithstanding.That professions have moved with the times is not in any doubt, however, in their embrace of the market (along with its often high rewards), have the professions now opened themselves to criticism previously levelled at mere business people?
Interview with Bill Browder, human rights campaigner, founder of Hermitage Capital, Russia expert and author of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Discussion with Bill Browder, Matthew Gwyther and members of Jericho Chambers' community of business leaders and experts. In the wake of 'Skripal-gate', what next for Russia?
Is this the beginning or the end of Russia's relationship with the West?
Regulating for the common good - is the devil the detail? In an era of disruption, how do we bring in effective regulatory systems with a bigger picture view, geared towards public good? Journalist Matthew Gwyther interviews: Christine Armstrong, Co-founder, Jericho Chambers; David Brown, CEO, Go-Ahead Group; Harry Armstrong, Head of Technology Futures, Nesta; Katy Taylor, Group Marketing and Customer Experience Director, Go-Ahead Group; Michael Hurwitz, Director of Innovation, Transport for London; Simon Craven, Special Adviser, Go-Ahead Group; Stephen Joseph, CEO, Campaign for Better Transport, and Tony Travers, Director, Institute of Public Affairs, London School of Economics. From a starting point of transport, the conversation covers wider use of data, nationalisation vs privatisation, the importance of culture, better power symmetry across different industries, and working with - not against - innovators to design regulation fit for the future.
Matthew Gwyther talks to Alex Jan, Charles Leadbeater, David Brown, John Gibson, Julie Alexander and Robert Phillips.
Is private car ownership defunct? With road space limited and road usage growing, the debate on congestion and air quality in cities is heated. While opinions vary on what is to be done, people agree that a breakthrough is needed. Will it be a matter of P2P platforms, a technological overhaul of systems and modes of transport, policy reform - or a combination of the three? Journalist Matthew Gwyther talks to some of the leading thinkers and players in this space. Answering these and other transport and air-quality questions: Isabel Dedring, Global Transport Lead at ARUP; Nick Lester-Davis, Vice-Chair, European Road Transport Research Advisory; Jonathan Hampson, General Manager, Zipcar; Frank Kelly, Professor of Environmental Health, King's College London; and David Brown, CEO, Go-Ahead Group.