Anthony Constantinou appears in Old Bailey accused of sexual assault January 4, 2016 Anthony Constantinou, head of Capital World Markets (CWM), has appeared in the Old Bailey today, on trial accused of a string of sexual assaults. The case is ongoing. Constantinou, who originally appeared before the court in July last year for a preliminary hearing, is the son of Aristos Constantinou, a famed fashion mogul who was murdered on New [...]
SME health check: What 2016 holds for UK firms January 4, 2016 The past year has seen the continuation of steady UK growth alongside a degree of political stability after the re-election of the Conservative Party with a majority in May. The result is that business confidence in general is positive. But what of SMEs in particular? And what could 2016 bring? First, we’ve seen a huge [...]
Flickr and Slack founder Stewart Butterfield on starting one of the fastest growing startups ever January 4, 2016 "I lived in Cambridge in the late 1990s, and even then they were working on Silicon Fen,” says Stewart Butterfield. We’re talking about replicating Silicon Valley because, as the founder of Flickr and now team collaboration tool Slack, he’s well placed to comment. And it’s not that he’s picking on Cambridge; the point is that [...]
Five charts that show how millennials’ Christmas celebrations differ from traditional ones December 23, 2015 Gearing up for a Christmas dinner with pudding, turkey and all the trimmings? Let us take a stab and guess that you’re 35 years or older. As it turns out, where you’ll be spending your Christmas day reveals more than you might think about your age. Not to mention what you’re putting on the table [...]
Honesty is the best policy: Companies need a transparent culture to attract and retain the best talent December 22, 2015 As we head into 2016, the job market is soaring towards unprecedented levels of competition. Employers looking to attract and retain top talent can no longer rely on big salaries alone in the year to come. Many are already relying on a growing list of perks from flexi-working to free beer to inspiring office spaces. [...]
Denise Leicester’s Ila is a beauty brand that loves you back December 21, 2015 Beauty products all claim to be the most age-defying, youth-providing, beautifying, and so on. And there’s a bamboozling list of chemical names which claim to do just that. But a growing awareness that what you put on your skin is as important for your health as what you put in your mouth, is leading more [...]
The biggest economic stories of 2015 and 2016 – Investec Comment December 21, 2015 Seven years after cutting them to record lows, last week, the US Federal Reserve finally put speculation to rest about when it would begin the process of increasing interest rates, announcing a small 25 basis points rise. This was hardly a surprise: it was almost completely factored into markets, so the real question was over [...]
The UK is fantastic at starting business, but notoriously bad at growing them: We need sharing data to turn startups into the next Facebook December 17, 2015 The UK has the potential to lead the digital revolution – boosting productivity and our economic power in the process. Some 15 per cent of the nearly 600,000 businesses registered with Companies House in 2014 were digital. By 2030, the UK is set to employ 7.1m people in science-based roles and the digital sector already [...]
The Leap have flourished in pro-entrepreneur Britain December 16, 2015 THE year in politics has been nothing short of astonishing. Defying predictions, we now have a Conservative majority government and Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, and the gulf between the two main parties is widening faster than thought. Yet there has been one subject on which all parties have been agreed: that entrepreneurs are good [...]
Fielding expertise: WeFarm founder Kenny Ewan on mangoes, peer reviews, and foot and mouth December 14, 2015 Look on the We Farm home page, and you’ll see a feed of questions like, “please, I need a reason as to why my coffee leaves are changing into yellow”. Answer: “It’s mainly due to lack of nitrogen. Foliar spray with a good foliar fertiliser like Omex will help clear this.” Or, “what is the [...]