Journal

Travelled north to Leeds by train yesterday for Yorkshire Sustainability Week, speaking today in a session alongside someone I have known through his many incarnations, Dr Wayne Visser. Not sure I have ever been to Leeds before, but was impressed.

Also impressed by what Kate Hutchinson and her team have managed to pull off – and heard something of their ambitious expansion plans. After our session we went to lunch with someone else I have long known, Mike Berners-Lee of Small World Consulting. Fun. That said, noise in rail carriages both ways was not fun – thank heavens for headphones …

The interview I did with Mariijn Jongsma while in Maastricht last month recently appeared today (in Dutch, of course) over a couple of pages in the Dutch pink pages, Het Finacieele Dagblad. Friendly, as far as I can tell : )

Wonderful to see media coverage beginning for Hania’s new Amazon Prime series, Fifteen-Love, starring Aidan Turner and Ella Lily Hyland. Can’t wait to see it.

Across to UCL this evening to be a panellist, alongside Jeremy Oppenheim of SYSTEMIQ, at an event launching The Big Con, a new book by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington. Stonkingly hot in the famous lecture theatre, with a large screen immediately behind us serving like a giant 15-bar radiator. But a lively discussion – and, overall, a devastating critique of the way the Big 3 strategy consultancies (Bain, BCG, McKinsey – Jeremy’s alma mater as it happens) and the Big 4 accounting firms (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PWC) ‘infantilise’ their clients, whether intentionally or not.

By Eurostar and other trains to Maastricht University for the 8th International conference on New Business Models, where I was the opening keynote speaker. Spoke alongside Suzanne Wisse-Huiskes, who is a member of the Investment Committee
of the InvestEU Fund. Some excellent discussions, followed by supper with Frida Roper, our CEO Louise’s eldest daughter, who is studying in Maastricht. A memorable visit, with one of the most striking moments being our visit on the first evening to a bookshop built inside a church in the city centre. Felt right at home.