AlixPartners' Simon Freakley on Why Being a CEO Is Tougher Than Ever

Leaders with Francine Lacqua

Bloomberg

Entrepreneurship, Careers, Management, Business

4.6 • 64 Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The job of chief executive is more demanding than it’s ever been. So says Simon Freakley, CEO of international business advisory firm AlixPartners.

While they still have to handle the core responsibilities—revenue growth, earnings growth and dividends to shareholders—he says there are more duties now than was the case just a few decades ago. “They need to have a voice about the values of the organization, the purpose of the organization and to comment on important issues of the day,” he says.

Freakley joins this week’s In the City with David Merritt and Francine Lacqua to discuss the challenges facing top executives, including managing the ongoing, profound shifts around technology, environmental pressures and supply chains.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:53.0	Listen to the latest from Bloomberg News Now on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen. I was walking down the street in the States a couple of years, 20 years ago, and my phone, my mobile phone, and I didn't recognize it down, and I picked it up. And this guy said, oh, hello, is that Simon Freakley? So I said, oh, this is Richard Branson here?
1:11.8	Because I'd never met him before in my life.
1:13.1	So I said, is that Richard Branson, Richard Branson?
1:15.1	He said, yes, I'm Richard Branson, Richard Branson. So he said, I have a, my friend has a problem and I'm told that you're the person that can solve it. and so I laughed and said, you've no idea how many times people say that to me, Richard, that my friend has a problem.
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1:45.0	Where did he buy it?
1:46.0	He bought to an auction house, yeah.
1:47.0	And did you get it back?
1:48.0	We did. Yeah, did. No, no, we did. No, it was a complete fraud. But how did you, so I, what you call the auction house and say? say well we just did the provenance on the piano and could show that it wasn't the right piano
2:00.8	what a story it was a it was a bizarre moment i must say Well, we just did the provenance on the piano and could show that it wasn't the right piano.
2:01.7	What a story.
	...

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