Journal

Across to Brick Lane with Charmian late in the day to take part in a panel discussion for Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP).  Speaking alongside Jon Sopel of BBC News 24, Gib Bulloch of ADP, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart of Anglo-American and Charles Badenoch of World Vision. Lively and the time whistled by, an experience I don’t normally share with the rest of humanity. First time I had been to The Brickhouse, an interesting venue, a bit like playing the Jazz Cafe. The subject of the debate, a new paper by Gib and Jane Nelson, called Development Collaboration: None of Our Business?

Sam and Char prepare to head across to The Hub

Spoke at the SHINE conference near King’s Cross this evening, before heading over to The Hub for a party – with Alejandro, Charmian, Rosie (Reeve), Sam and Yingli (Guo). Cliff Prior of UnLtd asked all the Volans folk to self-identify themselves in front of the final plenary session, which was rather a proud moment.  Things may have been challenging, but we have built a great team.

The event was one of the first I have spoken at that was tracked by Twitter.

It was pouring as I walked back to the office later, hoping to cycle home, but gave up and took the Tube.

The Hub, from the top floor The Hub, detail of roof Photographer snapped

Shot by Maggie Peter in full flow Jodie and Geoff in midst of a later session

This morning I went across to SustainAbility to do a session with the full SustainAbility team, with people having flown in from Switzerland, India and the US.  Right at the beginning, Maggie (Brenneke) stole my camera and shot some pictures from the front, one of which is shown here. When it came to our session, John Schaetzl, SustainAbility’s Chairman, interviewed me on how to engage CEOs and other C-suite folk.  A very lively discussion, followed by lunch and then cycled back to Bloomsbury Place for a series of meetings.

Harvey Nicks 1 Harvey Nicks 2 Harvey Nicks 3 Harvey Nicks 4

Spent the day at the Lanesborough Hotel, at Hyde Park Corner, a few buildings along from where SustainAbility used to have its office.  This was the AGM for Limited Partners and Advisory Board members for zouk ventures.  

Last night, walking from Sloane Street station to Daphne’s for a zouk dinner, I managed to slightly lose myself, even though I know the area quite well, having lived there many years ago – and then collided with Professor Alexander Zehnder, who I last saw at a SAM session in Switzerland almost a decade ago.  We guided each other in.

Among the companies reviewed today were Gas Turbine Efficiency (GTE), Nanotron Technologies, Orb Energy (which I visited in Bangalore some years back), SiC Processing, Solarcentury, Sulfurcell Solartechnik, Trilliant and Triton-Format.

Before walking back to the US Embassy for a the showing of Frogs: The Thin Green Line, I took a quick spin around Knightsbridge, where, once again, I was forcefully struck by the Harvey Nichols windows. Then back through Hyde Park, where I took a closer look at the Cavalry memorial, which I hadn’t really looked at before – with its St George and the dragon. Struck me that the air force pilots were the WWII equivalents of the cavalry.

Following today’s zouk ventures AGM at The Lanesborough, I walked up to the US Embassy in a slight drizzle this evening to see the film Frogs: The Thin Green Line, with Sam (Lakha) and YingLi (Guo). Met the director, Allison Argo of ArgoFilms, before the film began, and asked the first question from the audience when the discussion began.  A very powerful account of the plight of amphibians worldwide, with a particular focus on the chytrid fungus, which I covered in a blog entry on 4 February 2006 and again on 1 January 2008. Made eating the popcorn they served a little harder than usual.