Coronavirus: Asian stocks turn green on Bank of Japan stimulus pledge March 2, 2020 Asian stocks stemmed their losses overnight as shares rose in response to the Bank of Japan’s move to inject stimulus to save its economy from the worst impact of the coronavirus outbreak. The Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng both climbed after Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda pledged to help protect markets from exposure [...]
Draper Esprit leads $83m funding round in Thought Machine March 2, 2020 Technology company Thought Machine has raised $83m (£64.74m) in series B funding led by Draper Esprit. The venture capital firm, which has invested in a number of fintech businesses, contributed £26.5m to the funding for Thought Machine, a technology company that builds cloud-native technology for banks. Thought Machine’s banking platform, Vault, counts Lloyds Banking Group, [...]
Is the future of the Big Six advertising agencies under threat? March 2, 2020 Navel-gazing about the future is becoming increasingly fashionable in adland. The last few years have been tricky for the industry, as profits have faltered and clients have demanded more and more of the major players. It has led to concerns that the Big Six, the marketing giants which have dominated the sector for the last [...]
How Yorkshire Tea turned a storm in a teacup into a marketing success March 2, 2020 Yorkshire Tea unwittingly found itself in the middle of a Twitter storm last week when the new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, published a seemingly innocuous image of himself “making tea for the team”. The photo featured the brand like a poorly orchestrated influencer marketing campaign. Soon after, the company was faced with a torrent of abuse [...]
It is staggering that breastfeeding at work is still an issue anywhere March 2, 2020 In January, House of Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle finally overturned a 20-year-old ban on breastfeeding in the chamber, saying: “If it happens, it happens. I won’t be upset by it.” It’s about time. I have just returned to work after having my second child, who I am still breastfeeding. As an employer myself, I [...]
Home Office chaos looks none too Priti March 2, 2020 The perpetual conflict between Eastasia, Oceania and Eurasia’ in Orwell’s 1984 is a warning, not a how-to. Yet Number 10 and Boris Johnson’s government seem to be creating their own version of permanent war, finding enemies real and imagined right across the ranks of the civil service, the backbenches and Britain’s oldest institutions. The latest [...]
City Moves for 2 March — Who’s switching jobs at Publicis, Onthemarket and CTS? March 2, 2020 Today’s City Moves includes Publicis, Onthemarket and CTS Publicis Groupe UK Publicis Groupe UK has announced that David Hackworthy, Saatchi & Saatchi’s global chief strategy officer, has been promoted to the newly created role of chief strategy officer of Publicis Groupe UK, in addition to his existing remit. He started his career client-side and has [...]
Hungary for UK growth March 2, 2020 Last Friday, after four years, I stepped down as the ambassador of Hungary to the Court of St. James’s. I arrived just days before the Brexit referendum — a referendum that, of course, shaped almost everything I did in the role here. It became apparent that the two priorities for me would be the representation [...]
Will France soon find a German dance partner for EU reform? March 2, 2020 Spare a thought for the President of France, the supremely confident Emmanuel Macron, in his uphill attempt to reform a floundering Europe. Following the great recession of 2008, the lion’s share of European leaders failed to fix the economic roof while the sun shone, eschewing the difficulties of structural economic reform in favour of the [...]
First Homes is a flawed solution to three very different problems March 2, 2020 What do you do when a government has all the right intentions for solving the country’s biggest challenges, but is going about it in entirely the wrong way? That’s a question we should all be asking, particularly when considering the recently announced housing plan. Optimistically entitled “First Homes”, the proposal is to offer a 30 [...]
