Wednesday 13th Sep, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Churchill famously said after the Battle of El Alamein: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” A year and a few months on from the UK’s referendum, that would be an apt description to employ here. It’s been a year in which we’ve heard clients wringing their hands with despair at what this means for their organisations, while simultaneously criticising consulting firms’ premature offers to help. We’ve also watched consultants attempting to seize the opportunity with one hand, while using the other to ward off the problems with attracting the best people, which will be inevitable once the immigration shutters descend.
Tuesday 20th Jun, 2017
By Zoë Stumpf.
Having just emerged—slowly—from the depths of the financial crisis, Brexit was arguably the last thing that the UK financial services industry needed. Eight years of dealing with onerous regulatory requirements and severe cost cutting–as well as the disruptive influence of digital and aggressive inroads by challenger banks–have taken their toll on the industry and left it in no need of this new challenge.
Wednesday 19th Apr, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Brexit? Article 50? We don’t care anymore. Or at least that’s the impression we’re getting from clients in the UK. With hard Brexit driving the political agenda and a real danger that we emerge from two years of wrangling with not a single trade agreement in place, many British businesses are deciding that they can’t afford to wait and see. Nothing about the political process to date would give a senior executive even a modicum of comfort that politicians have understood, or perhaps been honest about, the scale of the challenge ahead.
Thursday 1st Sep, 2016
By Edward Haigh.
In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote passions were running as high in our offices as I presume they were in many others. Fiona and I, sensing that brave and decisive leadership was required, and showing what we considered to be an admirable degree of self-sacrifice in the face of cruel adversity, wasted no time in convening an emergency breakfast for two at Fortnum & Mason’s elegantly re-fitted restaurant, 45 Jermyn St, to hatch a plan.
A brave plate of eggs benedict and several decisive cups of silver-needle jasmine tea later, the only plan we’d come up with was Fiona’s one to single-handedly fix everything by tea time the following Tuesday using nothing more or less than her fervour, intellectual self-confidence, and what you might call an artistic interpretation of the notion of democracy*. That being impractical, we resolved to do some research.
Friday 1st Jul, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska.
I never knew how much I loved my country till I became ashamed of it.
I cannot say I come from Great Britain anymore, because we have not been great-hearted. The vote to leave was just the latest example of a chronic failure to engage with the challenges of globalisation even while we benefited from it. We’ve enjoyed the advantages of peace and economic growth but shied away from the responsibility it brought.
Monday 27th Jun, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska and Edward Haigh.
Like 48.1% of the people who voted in the UK last Thursday, we were profoundly shocked by the result. Living in the London bubble, as most of us do, we’d catastrophically and unforgivably underestimated the fears and frustrations felt by other parts of the country. There should have been–and now needs to be–a far more serious engagement around the question of how a small island in north western Europe adapts to the consequences of globalisation.
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