Jericho Notices - June 2019
Welcome to the June update from Jericho – landing hot on the heels of the Optimism edition of Jericho Times. Thanks for all your lovely feedback. We are hoping - and trying - to make a difference. More Jericho programme updates in this newsletter - plus an important opinion piece from Jericho partner and Compass Chair, Neal Lawson, in the wake of the European elections, on the state of the Labour Party and UK democracy.
"Our democracy has to be overhauled for the 21st century. It’s why we back citizens’ assemblies and why, working with others, we want to inject new energy into the urgent fight to transform our democracy"
The global Responsible Tax project – curated on behalf of KPMG - continues to gain momentum. For a quick update on the year so far, check out the latest newsletter. May saw the tax team in Dublin to discuss “Tax and Trust”; June takes us to Brussels to deepen the conversation on Globalisation, Digitisation and Corporate Taxation. Let us know if you would like to contribute to the conversation. We will be publishing a series of articles over the summer in response to our initial provocations, with two tax publications and further events due in early autumn.
June also sees the first discussion group on “social justice in tech” and so begins the fightback against “the propaganda of inevitability”. Award-winning author and Jericho partner, Margaret Heffernan, is leading the provocation and initial thinking. Looking specifically at the accusation that the industry has done very badly on the diversity front with all sorts of negative consequences, Matthew Gwyther host interviews with Eithne O’Leary and Thom Weisel of Stifel, Check Warner of Diversity VC, Margaret Heffernan, Caroline Plumb and ex-Minister of State, Ed Vaizey, in the following podcast.
Elsewhere, Matthew reports from Coventry on the latest in our “Ideas to build a Better Britain” roundtable series, convened on behalf of BRE Group. The first year of the programme - a national listening exercise - concludes with a session in Swansea - and a London event on June 20th. Look-out for the initial Think Piece and policy challenges - coming soon - and get in touch if you would like to participate.
The Good Work agenda remains uppermost in Jericho minds. The focus this month is on the investor community and how institutional activism can help engineer change towards good work and a good society. Tick-box compliance around the “usual metrics”, we argue alongside CIPD CEO Peter Cheese, is not enough: fresh thinking and meaningful action, based on core principles, is required. Ed Houghton, summarises recent research findings via Warwick Business School.
And finally... another piece from Matthew, this time on the perils of executive pay, published in The Times; and the first phase of Jericho’s “Future of the Professions” programme concluded in May – with another report, this time focused on the legal sector.
Thanks, as ever, to all those within the Jericho community - partners, clients and friends - committed to meaningful change, a better society and the common good. None of us has all the answers but we are at least doing our bit, to do the right thing.
