Let’s be honest, it’s not been an easy start to the year. I’ll leave it to the experts to unpick the current geopolitical climate (as an aside, can I recommend JLA keynote speaker David Rennie’s Economist interviews as a way of interpreting the signals through the noise), but external forces continue to challenge our working environment. Oh, and it rained quite a lot, and Scotland once again provided glorious failure in the Six Nations.
Since March 2020, we’ve lacked certainty – Covid, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, increases in inflation and the cost of living, combined with what feels like exponential technological change (see also Margaret Heffernan’s “On the Level” substack for insights into the challenge of AI). It’s all kind of felt, well… exhausting.
I’ve always felt that the key to doing my job well over time and building trust with bigger corporate clients is providing a consistency of service. This is undoubtedly more difficult to achieve as the external environment has become choppier.
However, to channel my inner Ian Dury, I wanted to highlight a few points of optimism…
1. The Speaker Bureau market is strong and continues to evolve.
Rory Stewart speaking at our last Speakers Breakfast event.
I’ve been at JLA for 16 years, and it’s sometimes difficult to notice incremental change. But looking at the bigger market picture, I can see that we have more competitors, they are (for the most part) good companies with good people, in it for the right reasons and providing a good level of service to their clients and the wider industry.
We have also had to improve as a result. The nature of our world is we don’t sign contracts that last months or years. One bad booking after two hundred good ones could potentially end a relationship. This surely can only be a good thing for the corporate clients we serve and work with.
It feels good to work in an agile, competitive market, and though I worry about the effect technological change will have on my role and industry, this is outweighed by my confidence that people do actually want to listen to experts and meet in person and exchange ideas.
2. The talent we are booking is more diverse.
The conversation around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has felt like a swinging pendulum over the last few years, but stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, it’s unarguable that the speakers we are booking are more diverse and therefore more interesting than at the beginning of my career at JLA.
To give Margaret Heffernan a second reference here, her TED Talk “Dare to Disagree” was the single biggest eye opener I’ve had on the benefit of diverse teams and organisations. Whilst I recognise that business and society is still imbalanced and has work to do, it’s important to recognise that things have changed.
So as winter ends, I can see more than a sprig of hope and positivity – the world keeps turning, ideas and the power of speech can still effect change, and the people thinking, writing and orating are increasingly likely to represent the world around us.
I haven’t used any AI tools to write this post.
Featured keynote speakers.
Margaret Heffernan
Business Author & Former CEO
Having run a range of digital and internet businesses in the US, Margaret has turned to analysing where leadership in organisations so often goes wrong. Ignoring potential problems, failing to encourage or develop talent, building a culture of isolation and internal competition; all are commonplace issues that could easily be addressed.
David Rennie
Geopolitics Editor, The Economist
David has worked for the Economist for over a decade, living around the world and gaining a uniquely international perspective on global issues. After a period based in China as Beijing bureau chief, he returned to London to serve as the publication’s Geopolitics Editor.
If you would like more information on these speakers, or would like to discuss you own event requirements in more detail, please contact your JLA Agent or call 020 7907 2800.