Person of the Week

Cherie Blair

At the launch of Women 1st this week, Cherie Blair stated in her keynote speech that raising diversity was crucial to becoming more creative in business, rather than leaders continually recreating themselves. The initiative is a leadership development programme for female talent in industry led by People 1st and, in providing her endorsement, Cherie commented that the promotion of women to their rightful place in business was not about positive discrimination, but a sensible choice.

Quote of the Week

"In absolute terms, I am the most legally persecuted man of all times, in the whole history of mankind, worldwide, because I have been subjected to more than 2,500 court hearings and I have the good luck – having worked well in the past and having accumulated an important wealth – to have been able to spend more than €200m in consultants and judges ... I mean in consultants and lawyers."

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's Prime Minister

Facts of the week

Tragus and BaxterStorey recognised as two Top Track 250 firms with the biggest sales increases

The listing published by the Sunday Times ranks the biggest private companies by latest sales.

• The league table generates £68 billion turnover, which is about 5% of GDP.
• This year the research has high-lighted only those businesses showing an increase in sales and an operating profit in their most recent audited accounts.
• Industry companies recognised in this year's list included:
  • Gondola (18)
  • Alternative Hotel Group (32)
  • BaxterStorey (99)
  • Dorchester Collection (108)
  • Pret a Manger (122)
  • Tragus (125)
  • Charles Wells (150)
  • Nando's (194)

Source: fasttrack.co.uk

The // at the front of a web address was pointless and unnecessary states the scientist who created the World Wide Web.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, now director of the World Wide Web Consortium says that, if he had his time over again, he would leave them out of addresses.

• With the rise of the internet one of the most transformational technological changes of recent times, this story raises an interesting point.
• Part of Sir Tim's comments relate to the fact that he failed to predict what an impact the web would have. At the symposium in Washington DC this week he said, "Really, if you think about it, it doesn't need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //".
• Whilst most browsers now automatically fill in the // when you type www, Sir Tim commented, "Look at all the paper and trees, he said, that could have been saved if people had not had to write or type out those slashes on paper over the years — not to mention the human labour and time spent typing those two keystrokes countless millions of times in browser address boxes."

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Has political correctness gone too far? Is talent progression being stifled for the sake of being PC?

Click here for an update from this week’s event.

Article of the week

EP Condense is EP's weekly e-newsletter. But did you know that EP is also a bimonthly magazine available via subscription? Our Article of the Week provides a sample of what we have featured in past issue.

This week we feature a story from the EP archives. It is a business feature entitled "Building an individualised brand". In this article EP met with Julia Hands, Chairman and Chief Executive, and Douglas Waddell, Operations Director of Hand Picked Hotels. Discussing the potential for the country house hotel market, the pair spoke about the opportunities and challenges facing the development of their business. What were their experiences of the market and competition?