Lauder Beaumont Associates

Reports of a short-term recovery in the British manufacturing sector are heartening but will its long-term health be endangered by the introduction of higher tuition fees?

As it is, some firms are already struggling to find skilled workers so surely putting higher education out of the reach of so many young people will shrink that talent base further?

This week, Parliament voted through Government plans to raise the cap on tuition fees at English universities, allowing them to charge students more from 2012. The Government has said there will be deep cuts to the teaching grants for universities, which may mean institutions will aim to charge more to make up for the lost income. This could in effect place higher education out of the reach of many talented young people from less-affluent backgrounds.

In a recent report, ‘Manufacturing Outlook’, the Engineering Employers Federation said a survey of more than 500 manufacturing firms revealed that British manufacturers are recruiting new employees and making some new investments in response to the stronger than expected recovery in production.

It found the balance of companies recruiting improved again significantly to a record balance of +23%, the strongest in the survey’s history.

However, that good news was tempered somewhat by the EEF’s Chief Economist Lee Hopley who said, “The strong bounce back has also brought challenges with some manufacturers’ struggling to get the skills they need and facing rising costs.”

Cuts in higher education funding may make it even more difficult for those firms to recruit the high performing talent they need in the future. While other major manufacturing nations like Germany, France, Canada, and the US have invested in higher education in response to the downturn, we seem to be going the opposite way. Is this wise?

Talent represents a critical driver of operating results, and the associated employment costs represent one of the largest components of operating expense for many companies.  Effective talent acquisition and management is a fundamental prerequisite to achieving these goals.

In developed markets, science and engineering graduation rates are not keeping pace with baby boomer retirements, workforce expectations of employment are changing dramatically, jobs require more complex skill sets, and the competition for talent from other industries is increasing.

Lauder Beaumont Associates works with manufacturing organisations to help them secure business critical talent.  Call us now to discuss how we can help you.

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Four days on from the debacle in Bloemfontein, I have listened to and read many accounts as to where and how it all went wrong.  One argument is that we simply do not have the talent in this country compared with leading nations such as Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Argentina and Brazil.  The recurring theme is that we don’t have the players with the individual skill level that can make the difference at the highest level.  However, most of us who watch the premiership every week and the Champions League see these players compete regularly with their supposedly more highly skilled and talented foreign counterparts so it does make the argument somewhat hard to buy.  In addition, it is widely agreed that one player who does posses the creativity to go past players one on one and to find a defence splitting pass is Joe Cole, yet Fabio confined him to a bit part role in the finals.  Perhaps based on the argument that he was going to choose fit, in-form players and given that Joe Cole hasn’t managed to get a regular starting birth for Chelsea this season since his return from injury, perhaps this is a valid explanation for him not starting for England.  However, why take him in the first place if not considered fit or in form enough and how do you square that off with selecting Gareth Barry in such an important game when he has just recovered from an injury that nearly kept him out of the World Cup all together?  Barry looked like he was running through treacle as he tried to provide cover and stop the incisive German counter attacks that effectively ended any chance that we had of getting back into the game.

So can we learn anything in business about talent selection and management from England’s football failures? One thing for sure is that companies don’t have a great track record when selecting and managing talent with more than 50% of executive hires ending in failure.  Here are some of my thoughts, a light-hearted dig at the England management and team but with some serious messages:

1. Past performance is no guarantee of future success.  The performances of the players for their clubs suggested that England were amongst the favourites to the lift the World Cup.  Drawing parallels with a new job, each game is different, the team’s approach is different, the systems are different and the competition can prove to be fleeter of foot!  Past performance (with their clubs) is clearly no guarantee for future success. See my previous blog on this subject http://www.lauder-beaumont.com/2010/04/24/is-past-performance-a-reliable-indicator-of-future-success/              
2. Management must be accountable.  If you are paid £6 million a year and your own measure of success is at least reaching the semi-finals (Fabio Capello once stated this as the minimum he expected), being knocked out at the last 16 stage is failure.  The talent available to Fabio hasn’t changed greatly (loosing Rio Ferdinand was unfortunate but he hasn’t been available for much of the season) so he either picked the wrong talent, didn’t direct the talent effectively, couldn’t make them work as a team or he signed up to an unrealistic goal – whichever, he is accountable and must go!
3. Nurturing top talent early in their careers is imperative for success.  This is equally true for football as in business.    Spain, the European champions, has 750 Grade A Uefa-trained coaches, compared with fewer than 150 in England.  All those English tutors instruct fully-grown men while in Spain, 640 of the 750 teach five-year-olds and up. A Spanish cultural revolution 15 years ago has transformed the national team.  Sir Trevor Brooking, the Football Association’s director of football development, has spoken glowingly of Germany’s huge investment in coaching and talent cultivation.

My own personal view is that England’s failure has a lot to do with lack of belief.  We need to work harder on the mental fitness of our players in addition to physical fitness.

What’s your theory and what lessons do you think England’s World Cup failure can teach us in the business world?

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Despite record unemployment, recruiters are desperate for top-tier talent, according to a recent report in Newsweek magazine.  As companies across the world slowly recover from the last two years of decline, they are facing a massive shortage of top-tier management talent.  Wages are spiking as rival employers prompt bidding wars for top performing talent, reports the magazine.  Jeff Joerres, Chief Executive of Manpower says, “Thirty percent of employers across the globe continue to struggle to fill positions available.”

Despite such statements from leading recruitment industry figures such as Joerres, there seems to be a reluctance to accept this in UK boardrooms.  Perhaps there is a suspicion that Toerres and other key industry figures benefit from creating an impression that there is a shortage of top performing talent?  Naturally, a shortage of talent stimulates demand for external recruitment services.

It’s true to say that the last two years have proved to be very challenging for the recruitment industry as a whole.  You don’t need to be an expert mathematician to work out that if companies are laying people off rather than recruiting then it’s going to hurt the recruitment industry as a whole.  But in any industry sector, there are always winners and losers.  Take the leisure and tourism industry for example, despite a general industry downturn, the recession has led to a resurgence in Britons taking holidays closer to home, and as a result caravan sales in the UK have reached their highest level in over five years.

The recruitment industry as a whole may have taken a kick in the ribs but sections of the industry such as outplacement, career advisors and CV-writing specialists have all seen an upturn in fortunes as unemployment rises.  So what about specialist headhunters? Surely no need for their services with so many heads out there looking for work?

Not so.  In times of trouble, it really does become the survival of the fittest and that means having the very best talent at the helm to steer a course through troubled waters.  So surely headhunters would have been maxed out at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 when the economic picture was at its bleakest?  Unfortunately, not so: headhunting-activity was dramatically down.  The problem was that the downturn had been triggered by the near collapse of the banking system, the like of which the world had never seen – so a period of paralysis ensued – a do nothing policy until companies understood the impact on their own competitive positions.

There was a lag effect; once business worked out that conditions would be tough but corporate life had not ended as they knew it, then the headhunters’ phones began to ring again.  However, there was a misconception that this was a buyers’ market and that there would be top performing talent available at lower prices. Of course, the reality is that companies pretty much do whatever it takes to keep hold of their best talent and top performers are actually harder to prise out of their current roles – in times of economic uncertainty, people are more likely to stay in their current positions – security becomes more important.

The road to recovery may be a slow and painful one but companies recognise that top performing talent is key to accelerating the growth curve. They are still cautious and are not prepared to compromise.  The many are chasing the few so expect to have to fight hard if you want top performers – the shortage is real and the problem is not likely to be resolved any time soon.

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I never get tripped up by last-minute salary negotiations because I always ensure that my clients follow the advice in my soon-to-be published book ‘HOW TO HIRE TOP PERFORMING TALENT’ and make sure that everyone’s expectations are set before we get too far down the line with a candidate.  In my book, I advise that the salary question should be taken care of very early in proceedings, sometimes in the first call between employer or headhunter and the potential candidate. However, I have found that despite this, the compensation package is still capable of killing the deal at the eleventh hour!

So what goes wrong?  One issue is that hiring managers often provide a salary range for a position.  They use terms such as ‘dependant on experience’ or similar.  In theory, this makes perfect sense, it gives all parties concerned an indication of the package dimensions but keeps a broader range of candidates in scope; “no point missing out on the top-performer for a few extra £K”.  However, in my experience, providing a salary range can create as many, if not more, problems than it solves.

Once a number is mentioned to a potential candidate, an expectation is set.  If a salary range is given of between £75k-£100k, guess what end of the scale the candidate is thinking about?  If you think it’s the £75K end, guess again.  Let’s assume the headhunter’s researcher contacts a potential candidate for a role and gains a level of interest.  The candidate isn’t really looking for a move but the role does sound exciting and actually advances the candidate’s career, they see it as a fast track to their next logical career move.  The candidate is still not sure but the researcher reminds the candidate that the role pays up to £100k and as the candidate is currently on £73k, it sways the decision and the candidate agrees to go ahead.  Now this is not strictly breaking my golden rule, that if the only motivation for a candidate to take your role is money, then you should pass on that candidate.  There is enough in the role to attract the passive candidate but, not unreasonably, the additional reward is part of the attraction. 

So now let’s assume that the rest of the process plays out.  The headhunter meets the candidate and they agree that it’s a great match and confirm that the salary is in the right range.  The candidate meets with the client and all the interviews go well.  The client loves the candidate and they want to make an offer.  “Remind me, what is the candidate on now?  Naturally, they are looking for an improvement, what’s it going to take?”  The headhunter’s reply might go something like this, “Well, they are on a £73k base right now but there is a pay review next month and with the great job the candidate has done he is expecting a £7k raise minimum.  The candidate is extremely well thought of at his current company an obviously any move represents a risk.  He’s very excited about the opportunity and keen to join but to make that risk worth taking, he’s going to be looking for a £95k base as I outlined in my candidate profile.”

A silence on the other end of the phone followed by “I’ll call you back”.  Later that day and the client is back on.  “We would like to offer £82k”.  I’m sure you can see where this is headed.  Of course there will always be some final negotiation but it shouldn’t be about a £5-15k variation in salary – not at that stage.

The solution is to get far more specific or, if you must have a range, make it a small variation, no more than £5K.  Make sure you know exactly what the candidate is looking for before you interview them.  I always provide this information but yet hiring managers often want to proceed with the interview and decide later what they think the candidate is worth.  Don’t do this, it’s a mistake and could cost all parties much time and effort. 

Being specific about a salary doesn’t mean that there isn’t any room for manoeuvre.   A good headhunter will know when they come across a great candidate and will discuss the candidate with the client as long as the salary demands are not way off the scale.  For example, I recently had a remit where the base salary stated was £80k.  I found an excellent candidate who was going to cost £90k and I gave my client the option to see the candidate if they thought they could make a case for the additional salary. To be clear, this was a stand-out candidate who was clearly worth the additional salary and I wanted my client to have the option of meeting them or passing because they wouldn’t be able to match the salary.  I was clear that there was no point proceeding unless they could accommodate this.  The candidate got the job and there was no negotiation at the eleventh hour on salary: everyone knew where they stood from the outset.

So try to avoid providing salary ranges for positions wherever possible and get specific about what the position pays.  It will save much time and effort down the line.

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Sixty percent of employers check candidate credit ratings for some or all of the positions they hire for, according to a recent study by the SHRM.  But does a person’s credit rating give you any indication on their ability to do the job?  Is there any relationship between a person’s credit rating and performance?

I recently conducted an assignment for a banking client and I recommended that they interviewed just one candidate who I believed was a stand-out choice for the role.  This is quite a high risk strategy for a headhunter as normal practice is to provide a short-list of 3 or 4 high calibre candidates and let the client decide.  I still do this myself in most cases because it’s often a tight call but sometimes you go through the process and a stand-out candidate is obvious and over the years I’ve developed the confidence to ask my client to trust me; they really only need to interview this one candidate for the role. 

Fortunately for me, the client agreed with my view and my candidate was quickly accelerated through the interview process, impressing everyone that he met and clearly demonstrating that he was a compelling choice for the job.  Then at the eleventh hour, before an offer was made, my client introduced a vetting process which including a credit check.  It came as no surprise to me that there was no problem and that my candidate vetted positively but I couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if the checks and in particular the credit score was not up to scratch?  My candidate hadn’t changed, his references checked out, his past performance verified but presumably a negative credit rating would have suddenly meant that he was no longer the stand-out choice for the job?

Some might argue that a bad credit score would tell them something about the candidate’s reliability, that they couldn’t manage their own affairs properly which brought into question their ability to manage company affairs.  I’m sure there would be many arguments made about an executive with credit issues and their suitability to work in a banking environment.  But I still find this one difficult to square away, the candidate would be the same person before and after the check, was it fair to discriminate in this way?

So I did some digging and it seems that there is no research to suggest that there is any direct correlation between a person’s credit rating and their ability to perform in a job.  Also, 2009 was a tough year for many and the number of people who lost their jobs and ran in to credit problems increased dramatically.  The way out of credit problems is a new job and a new source of income.  This just can’t be right, these people are now stuck in a vicious circle: they can’t improve their credit rating until they get more income, which means new jobs, and they can’t get new jobs until their credit rating improves.

I don’t think this is right or fair but in my business life I have long since understood that first and foremost I need to serve the interests of my clients or I wouldn’t be in business for very long.  But the more I think about it, the less convinced I am that discriminating on the basis of a candidate’s credit score is in their best interests – they might just pass over the very best candidate for the role who would have performed brilliantly in the job.  Perhaps we should start a campaign to introduce legislation to ban such checks unless research is undertaken and clearly indicates that there is some correlation between a person’s performance in the job and their credit rating.  What do you think?

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I read with interest an article in “Business Week” that Barclays was being sued in Singapore for failing to pay Pagoda Partners Pte. S$365,000 ($266,000) after Britain’s second-largest bank hired Timothy Last from Merrill Lynch & Co. on the recruitment firm’s recommendation. Barclays was “unjustly enriched” by Pagoda after the headhunter sent the bank Last’s resume in January 2009 and wasn’t paid, according to documents filed with the Singapore High Court. A pre-trial hearing was held on April 19. Last, Barclays Capital’s head of equity derivatives flow sales for Asia, excluding Japan, was hired as a direct referral after Pagoda failed to set up a meeting, Barclays’s lawyers from Straits Law LLC said in the court filing. “There was never any agreement for the engagement of” Pagoda, Barclays said.

I will be very interested in the outcome of this legal action as such matters rarely come to court. A headhunting firm does not usually want to sour relationships with big clients such as Barclays, and will instead take a long-term view and settle out of court or even ‘take one on the chin’ to preserve the big account relationship.

This leads me to believe that Pagoda does not have a reputation or a relationship with Barclays to protect or else I cannot believe they would take matters so far.  Either there has been a falling out and the relationship is broken beyond repair or much more likely, they never did have a meaningful relationship with Barclays in the first place and the prospects of them forging one were so slim, they preferred to pursue the sizable $266,000 fee as a one-off.

So how does this happen?  Could you also be sued because some recruitment agent sent you a CV and then months later, your company hired them?  I would definitely err on the side of caution.

The way some recruitment agencies work is that they obtain CVs from various sources and then try to sell them to potentially interested parties, sometimes without any prior relationship with the target company.  CVs are obtained by advertising and other legitimate means.  However, to get a really valuable CV, e.g. a top performer in the banking industry, some recruitment agents might pose as headhunters with a great opportunity with a competitor.  The agent may have discovered that the competitor is recruiting for such a role or he may just be taking a complete flyer.  The point is that the top performer’s CV is the valuable asset the recruitment agent seeks.  Once obtained, the agent will approach the competitor, always a hiring manager rather than HR, and then try and uncover and opportunity for his prized candidate.  The fatal error is made when the hiring manager shows some interest and agrees to allow the recruiter to send the CV.  The agent will send the CV along with terms and conditions and if you are the recipient of the CV, you and your company can find yourselves in deep water – as Barclays have found to their cost. 

In some cases this can work fine.  The hiring manager gets a great candidate, the candidate gets to explore an opportunity that he didn’t know existed and the agent makes a fee if the candidate gets hired – not very ethical but no harm done.  HR doesn’t tend to like it but the hiring manager has a new valued employee so he will usually square it away with HR.  However, there isn’t always a happy ending. Let’s say the hiring manager is not the least bit interested in the CV and so doesn’t bother to respond.  Then some months later a position becomes open in another part of the business and through recommendation the position gets filled by the very same candidate, introduced by the agent some months earlier.  The agency made the introduction to the company and can prove it.  Check the terms and conditions, it will clearly state that the recruitment agent represents this candidate and if the business takes this person on in any capacity in the next two years, a fee is due!

My advice to hiring managers is first and foremost, don’t agree to be sent a CV from a recruitment agent unless you have an agreement in place with them and the terms are clearly defined.  If you do receive a CV with or without the agent’s terms and conditions attached, respond immediately to say that you do not agree to and you are not signing up to the terms presented (or not) and that you have not engaged the agent on this or any other opportunity with your organisation.  If the CV is of some interest, I would recommend that you go back to the agent and ask them to provide written proof that the candidate has agreed for them to represent them in a ‘general capacity’ and not for any specific opportunity with the organisation – this will make life particularly difficult for the agent if he has obtained the CV by some deception.

The final point is that this must be a recruitment agent rather than a headhunter.  The distinction here is important because a true headhunter would never operate in this way. Headhunters work purely for clients, not candidates and they are engaged and mostly retained to source relevant candidates for specific roles.  Don’t be fooled by unscrupulous recruitment agents trying to make a fast buck; it may prove to be very expensive!

Note: Just to be clear, I am not knocking recruitment agents in general, most do a good and valuable job and operate very ethically.  It’s the small minority that gives our industry a bad name!

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First off, research suggests that only 2-4% of jobs get filled through internet job-boards so the odds of you filling the vacancy through this channel are quite slim. 

Secondly, the only people who post their CVs on internet job boards are active job hunters and the person you need may not be in the market for a job right now. 

Thirdly, in my experience, top performing talent rarely if ever post their CVs on internet job boards.  On the rare occasions that top performers are out of work, their professional network quickly moves in and a plethora of opportunities are quickly brought to them to consider.  Yes, even in this climate, top performing talent doesn’t find it hard to get a job.  In tough economic climates more than ever, companies want to hire the best, the people who are going to make the difference to the bottom line.

Of course, the assumption I have made is that you want to hire top performing talent.  It’s hard to understand why you would want to surrender the competitive advantage of hiring the very best person for the job but I guess there may be a reason.  If this is the case, then I would agree that an internet job-board would be a more cost-effective way of going about it, although you should factor in the time to sift through the 300 applicants, 90% of which are unlikely to be relevant to the role you have on offer.

The world’s leading companies utilise a wide range of channels and methods to source talent for their business.  They use headhunters for filling key positions that have a big impact on business results.  These are not limited to boardroom executive hires or senior managers; it might be a sales position or a customer service manager.  If you want to get the top performers that make a difference to the bottom line, you simply can’t afford to rely on internet job-boards.  Of course, you can still waste your money on headhunters that don’t search effectively for top performers but that’s a whole subject in its own right and one I will tackle on another day.

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Oh dear, the revolving door at the Chief Executive’s office at the FA is spinning again.  Four predecessors in the last 10 years and a mere nine months in the job for Ian Watmore points to one thing and one thing only – it’s a broken job!

Whilst I am a huge football fan, I can’t claim to be an expert on the complexities and the balance of power between the various bodies that govern our national game.  What I can claim to be an expert on is successfully filling executive positions with people who are likely to stay in the job for more than a few months!  To me, five chief Executives in 10 years is evidence that something has gone badly wrong in the hiring process. 

But surely this is not the fault of the people doing the hiring at the FA; they picked a good man who appeared to have the hunger and appetite for the role and was determined to restore the FA to pre-eminence within the governance of English Football.  But did the rest of the people on the FA board who have an influence over the appointment of a Chief Executive share this vision?  Was it a joint goal that the FA board members were collectively aspiring to achieve?  It would seem that members of the board perhaps had other agendas (such as the agenda of the Premier League or their own clubs).

Boards of directors must set goals for their organisation and then they must all work together to achieve them.  Each board member will have individual and departmental goals but these must be linked back to the top-level goals.  If any member of the board has a goal or objective that does not contribute to, or worst still, conflicts with a top-level goal – then the person fulfilling that role cannot succeed.  This principal applies all the way down the organisation and to every role within it. 

In Ian Watmore’s case, it seems that his goal was unrealistic and could never be achieved within the current structures of the English game anyway, never mind whether his fellow board members shared his goal.

At any level, this leads to what we term in the industry as a ‘broken job’.  Broken jobs have goals and objectives that cannot be achieved or are divorced from the collective goals of the entity which the role ultimately serves.

So where does the FA go from here?  Either find someone who is fully aware of and prepared to work within the parameters of the broken job (don’t expect anyone with the profile and talent of previous appoints to go for this) – or fundamentally change the structure of English football and the FA‘s influence over it (I don’t see the Premier League rolling over any time soon) – or convince another talented individual from the public or private sector that there is a way to change things from within.  I expect the final option to prevail – so my bet is that the revolving door will be in action again very, very soon!

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In the news this week, Sir Fred Goodwin was welcomed back into corporate life by the architectural firm RMJM.  The consultancy role will be his first job since leaving RBS after the government bailed it out 15 months ago. RBS shareholders are naturally angered and the general public seem disgusted.  Even politicians have joined in and stated their displeasure that ‘Fred the Shred’ is back in work whilst the number of UK employed continues to climb due a recession which many people believe the banks and people like Sir Fred Goodwin caused.

So is it right that RMJM hired Sir Fred Goodwin?  Well, it would be easy for me to ride the wave of popular opinion; after all, this is the man that was vilified by the public for excessive greed and risking our money for his own ends.  He is the man who many blame for all but destroying one of our largest banks. 

On the other hand, I am a headhunter by profession and I spend my life helping companies find and attract talent.   A key message to my clients is that they need to look at an individual’s career as a whole rather than focus on one huge success or single failure.  You can get lucky once or twice but a consistent track record of success and achievement usually means that the individual has something to offer.  Equally, it is possible to be unlucky once or twice at a push but if someone has had an ‘unlucky career’, it probably has little or nothing to do with luck.

So with my headhunter hat on, I would be saying to my talent acquiring client that when you look at Sir Fred’s career as a whole, he has been hugely successful.   He was in charge at RBS for nine years and steered it from being a bit-part player to global icon as one of the world’s top five banks. He built up the bank with acquisition after acquisition – NatWest, Coutts, Adam & Co, Direct Line, Ulster Bank, Churchill and Citizens Bank in the US – and then ruthlessly cut costs through staff reductions to generate bigger profits.   The wheels started to come off with the acquisition of ABN Amro as part of a consortium at the height of the boom in 2007. Then came the heavy losses and a £12bn rights issue to raise more money for RBS. 

But let’s assume that another up and coming bank was looking for a Chief Executive at the start of 2007 and a headhunter approached Sir Fred. I suspect he could have named his price at that time.   The point is then, that despite mistakes towards the end of his tenure, based on his whole career, you would have to conclude that he was good at what he did.  OK, these were pretty gigantic mistakes, some might argue that whoppers on this scale should mean you never work again but RMJM don’t see it this way and I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of others that wouldn’t either.   In addition, Sir Fred wasn’t the only high profile figure to hit the rocks, there were plenty of other extremely bright minds who didn’t foresee the catastrophe that was awaiting the world’s banks.

Take Andy Hornby for example, the Chief Executive held responsible for driving HBOS to the brink of financial collapse.  He was back in work as Chief Executive of Alliance Boots just four months after losing his job in the Lloyds takeover of HBOS.  At the time, his appointment infuriated critics of the City who said one of the people blamed for failings leading up to the credit crunch was being rewarded with another well-paid job.  But the criticism died down relatively quickly and to many the appointment actually made a lot of sense as Hornby had a very successful career in retail before joining HBOS in 1999, spending many years at Asda.  His appointment represented somewhat of a coup for Alliance Boots as they reportedly tried to poach him for the role in 2003.

So is it a factor that Hornby is well qualified for his role in retail whereas Sir Fred is starting out in a line of work in which he seems to know little about?  His fiercest critics will argue that he knew little about banking either!  But I do not believe that this is the root of the issue – the real issue is that Sir Fred took a hefty payoff and pension (albeit reduced) whereas Hornby decided not to.

Both men made some big mistakes but both are extremely employable.  There is nothing legally wrong with either appointment and we all have a basic right to work in this country. 

No, this is not a legal issue or one about their ability to make a positive contribution to the business world in the future.  This is a moral question and a moral question alone.

The question should be ‘Is it morally right that Sir Fred Goodwin takes up a position with RMJM?’  He has already taken early retirement and a more than generous pension from RBS, although he was clearly never pensioned off at all and is quite capable of earning money with another company.

Would it have made a difference if had given back the huge tax-free lump sum he received and stopped drawing his £342,500 a year pension?  I think his return to corporate life would have attracted less headlines and outrage if he had.  It was always going to take up a few column inches initially but it would have soon died down. However, as it stands, I don’t expect Sir Fred to be too far away from the headlines for a while yet!

What do you think?

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