This month has been one of tremendous variety and stimulation – mostly good with the only the odd downer! The Foster family has been pushing the limits of experience. Alex partook in his first (and only?) skydive over the fields of Devon and navigated his way on a charity hitchhike from Bath to Edinburgh. Matt celebrated his 19th birthday in La Paz, Bolivia, in the midst of his four-month gap year travels around South America. He trekked to Machu Picchu and is now working his way up the surfing beaches of the Peruvian coast. After last month’s drama of temporarily losing one of his friends in Santiago the only major catastrophe to afflict him has been the theft of his precious Samsung S6 phone.
Alex’s jump had been a 21st birthday present from his mates – one which had not necessarily filled his parents with the same joy! He successfully leapt out (was pushed out!) of the plane at 15,000 feet strapped (thankfully) to an expert and after a period of free fall, his parachute was opened and he glided relatively smoothly to earth. He described the descent as “pretty awesome” – despite the fact that there had been some kind of minor (but unprecedented!) failure of one of the parachutes. As anxious parents we were just glad to get the confirmatory text message of his landing. The sense of his derring-do was only marginally undermined by the fact that earlier that day the same instructor had taken a 100 year old man on the same jump (something that featured in the main BBC evening news!).
His charity hitchhike involved dressing up as a rasher of bacon with his friend Molly (dressed as an egg!) and trying to get from Bath to Edinburgh without spending any money. 21 teams from Bath took part and Alex and Molly achieved a very creditable 6th by arriving within thirteen hours. They perfected their skills at lurking in various motorway service stations and looking needy and met some interesting folk en route!
Sandy and I started April with a week at our house in North Devon where the winds and waves of the Atlantic lashed the beach below in some spectacular high tides. We took a trip to Ilfracombe which is now graced by Damien Hurst’s enormous statue of Verity. We enjoyed a varied month of cultural experiences, including three separate plays in London. We also had the privilege of attending the live performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford of a special show for the BBC to mark the 400th Anniversary of the Bard’s passing. This included a surprise performance by the Prince of Wales reciting the “To be or not to be” lines from Hamlet. As I was a former member of the RSC Board, Sandy and I had the pleasure of being presented to HRH and Camilla before the show. The Prince was taking a break from marking another big milestone this month – i.e his mother’s 90th birthday and London has been awash with pageantry to celebrate this first of the many birthdays that the Queen has in a given year!
Rather less cultural, but equally fun was attending a concert by Muse at the O2 with my brother and his family. My ears have just about returned to normal after an extravaganza of light, video and heavy rock which definitely lived up to expectations. Other fun included an evening with my walking buddies – nicknamed the Barolo Boys – at a wine lecture and and tasting at the Wine Society which was focused on Sicilian Wines. This fascinating review of a little-known region was essential and enjoyable research for our next planned walking holiday in September.
My various Boards have kept me on the road this month with the Atento session in Luxembourg and the Alexander Mann Solutions Board in the offices of owner New Mountain Capital in New York. The Atento meeting included a review of the company’s latest strategy refresh. There is a clear sense that this provider of call centre and CRM services in Latin America will expand its solutions to build further digital capabilities around the current voice provision in the region. Much of the company’s business is in Brazil and, despite the challenges which the Brazilian economy is facing, there is huge demand for innovation in the way which customers and clients seek to interact. The AMS discussions were centred in the momentum which they are seeing in their recruitment and wider talent services around the world and their success at both retaining current clients and adding major new logos to their portfolio.
While in New York I also did some further work in my capacity as Chair of the Strategy subcommittee of the Heidrick & Struggles Board. This was in preparation for next month’s offsite where we plan to explore the further differentiation of the executive search model and the focus of adjacent leadership consulting offerings. By chance this month I found myself acting as part of the review committee for one of my companies overseeing the selection of a search consultant and a) it was good to be on the other side of the pitch table! and b) it was fascinating to see how six different players in the same space sought to stand out from the crowd. The interplay of relationship strength, innovative tools, geographic and sector footprint and capacity to listen were telling factors in the choices made.
One area where there has been undoubted global aid progress is the eradication of malaria. This was the theme of a great session held in the House of Commons to mark World Malaria Day. Many countries in the world have succeeded in eliminating this threat and others are on the way to doing so over the coming decades. The meeting reinforced the importance of maintaining funding in this cause and the growing role of technology in helping to diagnose, treat, prevent and monitor progress against the disease.
I also attended my first meeting of the Strategy committee of Cranleigh School. It is enlightening to see how a successful independent Prep and Senior School works to maintain its position in a market place of changing parental demands and dynamic competitors. This was also a topic of discussion at a meeting of the University College Development Board in Oxford. The College is coming towards the end of a very successful multi-year campaign to raise some £55m for its endowment and thoughts are turning to the next stage. Over dinner in the glorious surroundings of the Senior Common Room we explored with the Master the levers of outreach, admissions policy, tutorial excellence and facilities which can be pulled to ensure that the college improves its academic position in Oxford. There was some debate as to why it was that the university as a whole struggles to modernise the subjects it teaches and their relative mix, given the rise in demand for technical and vocational skills alongside the more traditional subjects. I was pleased to defend the continuing value of the 150 places in Classics that Oxford still offers, though I also shared concerns that there were less than 20 for Computer Science!
Luckily my book of the month had been the excellent “Dynasty” by Tom Holland – which tracks the lives of the early Caesars in all their lurid detail – and so I felt that I was up to date with my facts! The meeting included a chance to look around the newly refurbished and developed student rooms in the block that I had lived in for two years from 1979 to 1980. The new rooms are amazingly well-appointed with ensuite bathrooms and large shared kitchen areas nearby. Any pangs of jealousy I might have had for the young students we met were quickly dispelled when I saw them heading off for exams in their gowns the next day. I stayed in the College overnight and it was a bit weird to get up and go for breakfast in the Queen’s Lane Coffee House – a haunt from my student days. I was pleased that I did not to have to to leap up for 6.00am rowing practice on the river though!
In the wider world this has been a really mixed up month of contrasts too. There has been progress in defeating Daesh in a number of cities in Syria and it seems that efforts to squeeze their finances and intelligence is dramatically slowing their ability to recruit new fighters. At the same time the Syrian civil war is escalating once more and the growth of IS in Libya is continuing unchecked. The flow of refugees via the Greek islands and Turkey has been stemmed by the new “deal” on returning migrants (despite continued humanitarian concerns), but the path from North Africa to the Italian islands has just opened up for the summer with many terrible drownings.
There was a relatively thoughtful and effective “farewell” visit to Europe by Barack Obama which showed the US engaging in world affairs with a degree of “big picture” thinking. Sadly this was more than overwhelmed by the brazen outbursts of an ever more confident and triumphant Donald Trump back in America in the race to become the next President. Some of the wider economic arguments for Britain remaining in Europe managed to seize the initiative from the Brexiters for a period, and the pound recovered some strength, but the unresolved migrant crisis, the fears over potential expansion of visa-free travel to Turkey and the wrapping of various exit politicians in the Union Jack has resulted in a 50/50 set of recent polls about the outcome of the referendum in June. All of this uncertainty has cast a pall over the global economy and left many commentators fearing for a renewed downturn. Caution continues to be the watchword.
Sandy escaped from the doom and gloom by seeing Funny Girl which has opened to acclaim in London starring Sheridan Smith. We both enjoyed performances of The End of Longing (written by and starring Matthew Perry of Friends fame) and People, Places and Things. Both these plays interestingly dealt with the themes of addiction and redemption. The latter is a successful transfer from The National Theatre starring the amazing Denise Gough as a recovering addict. It was very effective to see the layers of her personality – and its impact on those around her, being peeled back one by one as she fought to get clean.
The drama of this performance was more than matched at the very special evening we enjoyed in Stratford. The show was a homage to the influence of Shakespeare on theatre, ballet, musicals and more and starred a wonderful group of performers including Dame Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant and many more. The whole extravaganza was directed by Greg Doran, the Artistic Director of the RSC and was broadcast live on BBC 2. The show ended with a moving collection of final words from various plays as we all held up tiny electric candles around the theatre in memory of the playwright. After the exultant finale the cast assembled on stage to watch a screening of the spectacular fireworks that were set off outside the theatre. Sandy and I walked along the specially illuminated path to the Trinity Church where Shakespeare had been buried 400 years before. There was a solemn vigil underway in the church and we joined the group which filed past the Bard’s flower-covered grave as choristers sang in the pews. Stories have emerged this month that his skull is apparently missing from the grave – it has probably been used for a few “Yorichs” over the years! By chance I was at the front of the grave as midnight struck and it was a very moving and special moment to mark the life of a truly great man.
My progress to the church was not straightforward as I had to hobble along after suffering a nasty ankle injury in Dads’ footie that morning. My desperate efforts to regain the ball had coincided with two of the larger members of the “Black” team converging on it. As I went over there was a terrible tearing and scraping of tendons and ligaments only matched by my scream of pain. Thankfully nothing appears to be broken, but I am “hors de combat” for a while and doing a passable impression of Long John Silver on my travels. So just as Sandy has had her cast removed from her ankle after surgery, I have taken over limping duties for the family. Who knows – perhaps by the end of May we might actually both be fully mobile human beings again and better able to enjoy the spring sunshine around Winterfold.
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