20/09/2012
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2012
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The view from the top of business. Presented by Evan Davis, The Bottom Line cuts through confusion, statistics and spin to present a clearer view of the business world, through discussion with people running leading and emerging companies.
The mere mention of the word "Europe" in the media these days conjures up images of economic crisis - riots, bailouts, 12-figure debts, emergency summits. And yet the European Union remains the world's largest economy, its GDP some 10 per cent larger than that of the US. So is the idea that Europe is in terminal decline exaggerated? Evan asks his guests if Europe's current woes are just bumps on the road towards greater prosperity.
And on a lighter note - silos, those invisible barriers which often develop inside organisations. Conventional wisdom says that they inhibit communication and can lead to dysfunctional, isolated units. Evan's guests debate whether they're such a bad thing after all.
In the studio are Rachel Lomax, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and non-executive director of several companies including HSBC and BAA; Moray MacLennan, Chief Executive of advertising agency M&C Saatchi Worldwide; Phil Bentley, Managing Director of British Gas.
Producer: Ben Crighton Editor: Innes Bowen.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this program. |
| 0:02.2 | In this edition of The Bottom Line, Evan Davis and guests discuss the fortunes of Europe. |
| 0:07.7 | Hello and welcome to our new series of the Bottom Line, and on our minds at the moment, is Europe. |
| 0:13.6 | Look at the headline, and it's a continent in crisis. |
| 0:16.4 | Look at the data, and you see countries that are among the most affluent, productive and creative in the |
| 0:21.2 | world. I'll ask my three business guests, which Europe they recognise. And silo syndrome. |
| 0:28.5 | We'll talk about those invisible barriers that develop inside organisations. But before any of that, |
| 0:34.5 | as usual, I have three guests, all run companies or are involved at the very |
| 0:38.8 | highest level. First up, Rachel Lomax, who used to be deputy governor of the Bank of England |
| 0:44.5 | after a long career in the civil service and who now serves on the boards of several companies, |
| 0:50.6 | including HSBC, one of the world's biggest banks, of course, and BAA, the UK |
| 0:57.0 | airports operator. |
| 0:59.1 | And Rachel, it might be interesting to compare your public sector career to your private |
| 1:04.2 | sector career, two very different cultures. |
| 1:06.8 | Yes, no. |
| 1:07.8 | I mean, a big bank is not that million miles away from a large public sector bureaucracy. |
| 1:15.1 | And many of the issues that I'm dealing with at HSBC and indeed at BAA are about regulation, which I dealt with during my public sector career, the financial sector, which I spent a lot of time working on both at the Bank of England and at the Treasury. |
| 1:31.6 | So actually there's more continuity than you might imagine across the divide as people like to think of it. |
| 1:36.8 | We should just have a quick chat to you about the Bank of England. |
| 1:39.5 | It was an interesting period you were there in the run-up, really, to the financial crash. Now, of course, they're trying |
| 1:46.1 | to appoint a new governor. What do you think they should be looking for in a new governor of the Bank |
| 1:49.8 | of England? I mean, the period I was there was one of sort of unreal calm for the first four years, |
... |
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