SAS AUTHOR FIXES CITY ROLES FOR MILITARY
THRILLER writer Andy McNab is juggling more than one deadline. When the former SAS hardman is not working on his latest novel – a Channel Tunnel thriller starring his new character Tom Buckingham – McNab is fixing jobs in the City for service leavers as a director of military recruitment agency ForceSelect.
McNab, who has received two “credible” death threats, may not be able to show his face in this newspaper (outline picture below), but when it comes to placing former army officers in investment banks, he is happy to raise his profile.
ForceSelect last month signed a recruitment deal with the Financial Ombudsman Service, and McNab hopes Nomura will be next on board, after spending Saturday on the phone to the bank to capitalise on his trip to the firm’s Hong Kong office last summer.
On 28 February, meanwhile, McNab will speak at a dinner for 100 oil and gas executives in Aberdeen to persuade the likes of RPS Energy, Amec, Calash and St Andrews Metals to hire more military service leavers. Even McDonald’s, one of the 90 businesses that has signed contracts with ForceSelect, is apparently keen to snap up ex-military personnel – at managerial level, obviously. “The military produces good citizens,” says McNab. “It seems madness not to set these people up with companies who want their skills.”
McNab was speaking to The Capitalist ahead of a fundraising dinner at the Chiswell Street Brewery on Wednesday in aid of the ForceSelect Foundation, which supports smaller military charities. No doubt the live music from 1980s act Curiosity Killed the Cat will compensate for the confirmed no-show from the foundation’s best-known trustee: former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.
LOCATION, LOCATION
ONE DOOR closes and another one opens. Andrew Honnor, who started as interim director of corporate affairs at News International shortly after the demise of the News of the World and left last Friday on the day Rupert Murdoch launched the Sun on Sunday, has this morning set up shop with his new financial PR company Greenbrook.
Honnor is joined on the launch by Rosanna Konarzewski, formerly of Carlyle Group, and ex-MF Global PR associate Samantha Harris, and has leased office space on Stratford Place near Bond Street to go after private equity and hedge fund new-business.
“Fingers crossed we will be based within walking distance of potential clients,” says Honnor, whose non-compete period after exiting rival financial PR firm Tulchan last May expired last week.
“Unusual comms situations” are also on the agenda as Honnor sets about establishing the venture he wants to keep “small and nimble”.
POWER PLAY
IT HAS been likened to an all-female Davos, and New York’s Women, Inspiration and Enterprise Symposium is coming to London. Held on International Women’s Day on 8 March, the event will start with a power breakfast at the London Stock Exchange, where 50 female City high-fliers have been invited to open the markets.
Among those due to start the day’s trading are Rothschild chief executive Lynn de Rothschild, Julie Meyer, head of Ariadne Capital, Newton Investment Management’s Helena Morrissey, and Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet.
HOBBY HORSES
YOU’VE heard of flash-mobbing, now learn about flash-hobbying: a new trend started last Friday by 100 City workers, who descended on Broadgate Square to play a mass simulated game of polo on – no prizes for guessing – hobby horses.
England Captain Maurice Ormerod and Argentina captain Oscar Mancini led the Broadgate Square “game”, which was staged in honour of the upcoming Gaucho International Polo tournament at the O2.
High-octane polo is promised at the City A.M.-supported event on 21 March, with Argentinian wine-tasting and music from Latin American band Bajafondo.