Letter to Hugh
The Inclusion Initiative & a better world
Darling Hugh,
You saved me from isolation and irrelevance when we met at The Hotchkiss School in 1981. A bit of eurotrash from Madrid, raised in Dictator Franco’s traditional Spain, I was lost amid all the preppies in that Connecticut boarding school. You offered me your beautiful (like all of you) hand in friendship and I survived my oddity, with the help of our escape once a term for wild nights at Studio 54 in New York.
What I never realised till recently is how deeply you affected my life, all the way up to the present day. I thought the personal motivation for being a Diversity & Inclusion campaigner came from being a woman and an immigrant in the City. You, in fact were the springboard. Although I had guessed, it took a year for you to tell me you were gay, out of fear that I would turn away in disgust as others had. Your East Coast establishment upbringing did not help.
Power to the People
Firstly, many thanks to my dear friend, Alderman, Professor and Sheriff Michael Mainelli for asking me to share some thoughts with you.
INTRODUCTION
Covid-19 and its economic effects are not going away anytime soon. We will be seeing a reconfiguration of our systems, ranging from geopolitical relations to the power of national governments, from company accounts to working patterns.
Some say the new paradigm is but an acceleration of existing trends. I wouldn’t disagree, but there is a point at which acceleration leads us into a new world, one where we must change our outlook. One where the responsibilities of Boards of Directors broaden out into the wider world. THAT is what I will focus on today.
Speech at the Mansion House
Welcome all to the Annual Banquet of the WCIB and welcome to the Mansion House, the Heart of the City.
The Mansion House reminds me of the Villa Farnesina in Rome, built for Agostino Chigi, a banker who was treasurer to the Papal States in 1510 and a patron of great artists. He entertained his clients – Popes, Ambassadors, men of power – in such style that he was known as ‘the Magnificent’.
I should hope we have entertained you in such style today, that you too will say the International Bankers are Magnificent!
At one banquet, in an extravagant gesture, the silver dishes were thrown into the Tiber River after use. I therefore ask you to pick up any silver left on your tables and we shall throw it into the Thames. Or perhaps not!
Overcoming tribal challenges
The most successful species on this planet revels in the comfort of conformity. Just think of the boost and subsequent bonhomie that comes from a ‘successful’ meeting where everyone agrees. Yet with instability as the defining condition of our times, executives must evolve to become comfortable with discomfort.
Who, in the City, would hire someone who had failed a Maths O level? Twice. Yet that is the case of Sir Robert Stheeman, one of the most successful and trusted CEOs of the Debt Management Office, which is responsible for issuing UK government debt. It didn’t seem to affect the £2 trillion – give or take a few billion – that he has issued over 17 years in the job.