Journal

Across to Strawberry Hill House with Elaine to see Gaia’s Arachne installation, part of the 2023 Strawberry Hill House Flower Festival. Blown away, across all the senses.

My 4-page article on the ‘3Rs’ of responsibility, resilience and regeneration makes it into the September issue of I By IMD magazine. Published by IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Six copies arrived in the post room at Somerset House this week. It will be a month or more before this article pops up on their website. Bit by bit …

Across to 999 3rd Avenue, Manhattan, for the 10th anniversary celebration for The B Team. The message: ‘Time to be Bold’. Couple of hundred people, many of whom I knew, and wall-to-wall conversation with interesting folk. Then I was somewhat bouleversé when Jean Oelwang, who runs Richard Branson’s charitable arm, Virgin Unite, name-checked me from the stage.

One result was that there were queues to talk to me afterwards. Not a situation I particularly enjoy, but nice to be acknowledged. What with things like a lunch with Paul Bunje of Conservation X Labs and a second jaunt to a wine shop in Grand Central Station, to buy a bottle of a Quivira wine for Elaine (according to this blog, we visited the Sonoma Valley winery on 11 April, 2005), I walked around 100 city blocks today – and the walk home was marked by thumping rain. Thank heavens I had brought a large umbrella.

In very much the same way that I have long loved to visit the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., when there, so I try to do the same with the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA, when in New York. Walked there today, around 20 blocks either way. Long queue to get in, but it moved quickly.

One thing I love about the D.C. setup is the waterfall by the restaurant – and today I dropped into Paley Park, near MoMA, with its glorious water cascade.

And now for some images from the MoMA visit proper:

I always forget how late even major Brazilian events are in kicking off. The second day of the UN Global Compact event for Brazilian business today started 30 minutes late, precisely when I was meant to speak – and time-keeping didn’t improve much thereafter. Great fun, even so.

Note to self, though: ensure you deliver what your title promises. My title was Cleaner Fish, Dirty Waters. The idea was that we spend too much time thinking about cleaning up individual companies, too little time cleaning up the markets into which we then re-release them. But then I said too little on markets.

Knew it myself, but it also attracted a comment from my friend Peter Senge – who it was wonderful to see again. On the upside, I attracted separate three invitations to speak in Brazil while at the event – and did three on-camera interviews for the Global Compact and for Exame, which should keep the messages rippling out.