In our latest leadership roundup, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng announces the new CEO of Innovate UK; Behavioural Investment Coach and experienced Director Mike LeGassick discusses the launch of his new book and the importance of financial education; and Early Years’ practitioner Claire Dimpfl highlights the importance of community spirit.
Kwarteng appoints Mukerjee as new Innovate UK chief
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng recently appointed Indro Mukerjee as the new CEO of the country’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.
The appointment comes at a time when innovation is being earmarked as a key driver to the UK’s post-Covid economic recovery and when the government wants closer links to be established between industry and Westminster.
Mukerjee is an established business leader, boasting a wealth of corporate experience and a successful history of leading innovation and technology commercialisation at businesses across the globe. He has previously worked with names such as Watchstone Group plc, Plastic Logic plc, C-MAC MicroTechnology Ltd and Philips [now NXP] Semiconductors BV, among others.
He takes up his post with immediate effect and will set about changing the focus of Innovate UK from simply being a funding body to becoming an agency that will work more closely with firms to drive innovation and economic growth forward.
As part of this strategy, Mukerjee will play a key role in developing and implementing strategies that will promote the UK as a global leader in research and development [R&D] and establish the nation as a global superpower in science. This will involve de-risking innovation, enabling it and supporting it, and attract more private sector investment into R&D.
Kwarteng commented: “I want innovation to be at the heart of our efforts to build back better, and to achieve this we need strong leadership from experienced innovators, with business know-how, who can help unleash the UK’s vast scientific and technological potential.
“Along with his passion for science and technology, Indro [Mukerjee] boasts impressive credentials having worked at the top tier of businesses of all sizes and across different industries. I look forward to working closely with him at the helm of Innovate UK, which will be a crucial vehicle in accelerating business-led innovation and technology, driving economic growth, creating high-value jobs and cementing the UK’s status as a science superpower.”
Mukerjee said: “Throughout my career, I have had a strong personal passion for the journey from scientific discovery through to innovation and ultimately commercialisation of technology. I have seen that journey at first hand across many settings, industries, countries and types of business. I will use this experience as I lead Innovate UK and work with the Secretary of State to deliver the government’s innovation strategy.”
Mike LeGassick
After being in development for four years, Manning & Company Director and Behavioural Investment Coach, Mike LeGassick, has this year released his new book titled: Your Money and Your Life.
Discussing the book’s recent launch on the Leaders Council podcast, LeGassick discussed some of the factors that motivated him to write a publication of his own and spent some time promoting the need for people to be given a basic education into personal finance during their formative years.
LeGassick said: “The main motivation behind writing the book was to try to give something back. Because I work in financial services, I know from experience that it is almost like a world shrouded in secrecy and outdated jargon. My driving ambition with the book was to explain things in layman's terms to better educate clients.
“The book aims to teach readers vital life skills and money management know-how which are overlooked during one’s school education. It contains all the things I wish I had known when I left my secondary education, together with highly effective money-saving tips and ideas to get people thinking about the life they have and how they could have the life they want.”
Addressing the current lack of a basic financial education, LeGassick explained that a collaborative approach between key decision-makers within government, the education sector and the finance industry would be required to resolve the problem.
He said: “Education in financial services is something I am incredibly passionate about. If there was more basic education in school through to working life, we would have far better client outcomes and far less of a negative caseload for the Financial Conduct Authority to have to deal with.
“I have been fortunate to be asked to give talks to local colleges and universities and give an outlying foundation of things people should think about sooner rather than later when it comes to finance. In my opinion, there is nowhere near as much basic education about finance as there should be and what is out there is a bit outdated and full of industry jargon that does not really help clients at all.
“Education about finance has to be brought into the 21st Century, containing better explanations of key concepts that will hold people in good stead for life. Everyone must be on board to make this happen, including industry, government and education. Key decision makers need to listen to those on the ground and a collective process will be required to get things moving in the right direction.”
The full podcast featuring Manning & Company’s Mike LeGassick can be accessed below.
Claire Dimpfl
Despite the devastation that the Covid-19 pandemic has wrought around the world, so often over the last year we have seen numerous examples of communities coming together to support each other and the most vulnerable in society. Although the health crisis has brought a whole new set of challenges for the Early Years’ education sector, keeping community spirit intricately linked to all that they do has not been lost to Tadpoles Nursery School, based in Chelsea, west London.
Speaking on the Leaders Council podcast, owner and head Claire Dimpfl said: “Despite everything we have suffered, it is incredibly important that we focus on being part of the community and it is something we have tried to keep doing at Tadpoles.
“Over the last three years, we had a scheme where we would take the children down to our local care home, which unfortunately had to stop because of Covid. However, to make sure that the elderly people were not left lonely since they were unable to have visitors, we have been sending videos of the children in the nursery showing what they have been doing so that we can keep in contact with them.”
Indeed, Dimpfl and the Tadpoles team are no strangers to stepping in to support their local community when help is needed, having also intervened to help provide victims of the 2017 Grenfell fire with affordable laundry services.
Dimpfl continued: “Anything we do charity wise, we always try to operate through local charities to make sure that what we do is relevant to the children and the parents, as well as having an impact on the local community.
“When the Grenfell fire happened, I went during the night and helped by serving food and offered my experience as a play therapist to try to help traumatised children. The day after, I was in touch with part of the Kensington and Chelsea team and asked what we could do practically to help. A lot of things were being done but I felt that some of the victims were losing autonomy and I felt they needed that.
“For example, those who were being temporarily housed in hotels and B&B facilities either had considerably basic or awfully expensive laundry facilities at their disposal, or they did not have any at all. So, we found a laundry in Ladbroke Grove and put money into a scheme to help the victims be able to go and do their washing there. It just helped give people that little bit more control over their lives when it felt as if everything was being done for them.”
During the discussion, Dimpfl discussed a range of other topics relevant to the Early Years’ sector, including other issues posed by the Covid-19 crisis and the need for more male practitioners to be welcomed into the industry. The full podcast can be accessed below.
