On the 4th December Edelman hosted its fifth annual Crystal Ball Breakfast. Our esteemed panel making predictions for 2013, included: John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief, The Economist, frequent broadcaster and one of the world’s foremost authorities on globalization. He was joined by Dame Liz Forgan, the first female chair of the Arts Council, former BBC broadcaster and editor of the Guardian’s women’s pages, now chair of the Scott Trust;Sir Roger Carr, president of the CBI, chairman of Centrica plc, deputy chairman and senior independent director of the Court of the Bank of England; and, Ken Livingstone, former
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In recent months we have heard a lot from the Government and organisations on the value of investing in the UK’s youth. The most recent youth unemployment statistics (published 14 November 2012) show that in the period July-September 2012, 963,000 young people aged 16-24 were unemployed. Whilst this figure has gone down since the previous quarter, it is still concerning. Although I’m older than 24 and in permanent employment, I have seen the struggle that friends and family have gone through to find a good job. I was therefore encouraged last week when I saw
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This week on Edelman Editions, Stefan Stern, Director of Strategy meets with author, academic and leadership consultant, Andrew St.George to discuss leadership, and its six core values – as described in St.George’s most recent book, Royal Navy Way of Leadership. Following a three year stint with the Navy, where he was granted unlimited access to all levels, Andrew St George wrote a book detailing the culture and leadership of the Royal Navy. The universal nature of this highly efficient and respected organisation means that leadership skills within the Royal Navy and easily transferable to the
Read More »Following the £100m Dulux Dog, here’s another business story which should be bigger news. Case Study number 2: The British Engineering World Cup UK engineering consultancy Hyder is recruiting 500 engineers to help them build World Cup infrastructure in Qatar. That’s a huge number of skilled jobs, most of which will be UK-based, and it means that British expertise will help deliver the most technically ambitious World Cup in history. Exports! Making things! The Knowledge Economy! Football! This story has it all. But beyond a small piece in The FT and some trade titles, this
Read More »As Britain hoovers up gold at Olympics, it might not be a great time to ask for more business coverage in the media, but it is a good time to take stock and ask ourselves why British business news is so poor. This isn’t a whinge about the media – we all have to raise our game: companies, PR people and journalists. The reputation of British business matters, because animal spirits matter. In some ways, business has never grabbed a bigger slice of the British media. From Dragons Den to the Euro crisis, business and
Read More »With tonight’s opening ceremony, the eyes of the world and that of business are now firmly focused on London and the wider UK. With CEO’s, Presidents, Prime Ministers and Royalty jetting in from across the world, UK business now has an unique opportunity to capitalise on the international opportunities present in London over the next two weeks. With the UK still reeling from its worst economic crash since the 1930’s, the UK government is going on the offensive; with initiatives such as last night’s investment summit, attended by IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Google’s Executive
Read More »I took part in this week’s Edelman Editions podcast, debating the current state of the economy with my colleague Stefan Stern and the charming and persuasive Andrew Sissons, Researcher for the Big Innovation Centre at the Work Foundation. My argument attempted to combine optimism (there are a lot of good news stories across the economy if you care to look for them – our long-term prospects are pretty bright) and fatalism (there’s probably not a great deal anyone can do in the short term to stimulate growth). During the debate, we got on to the
Read More »In the weeks leading up to last night’s official opening of the Shard, there was a slew of teeth-grindingly infuriating critiques of the Shard in the UK media, all of them attacking it on the basis of what it allegedly stands for, rather than what it actually is. Sure, there were some limp digs at the fact that it was “out of scale” and “too dominant”, but that’s weak sauce, considering that the Shard took the place of another tall building, is just across the river from one of London’s main clusters of tall buildings
Read More »Shareholder debate on executive pay has intensified in recent weeks, following reforms set out by Vince Cable giving shareholders stronger power to control executive paycheques. The ‘shareholder spring’, which witnessed a flurry of senior executive pay-packets vetoed by shareholders, is set to become a permanent feature of the PLC landscape. The tell-tale signs that a shareholder storm was brewing were evident back in 2010, when a study presented to the American Accounting Association suggested that shareholder “vote-no” campaigns were becoming a highly effective tool in the shareholder arsenal. Pivotal to this was research that established
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