Your Interviews

 Ten minutes with....

Jonathan Ledwidge - EMBA 1992

What is your current position/occupation?
I have been contracting and consulting with a number of banks in the City mostly in the areas of business and audit reviews. That has given me the flexibility to write books and work on developing human asset strategies for banks and other types of organizations.

Why did you study at Cass?
Cass was one of the best investments in time, effort and money I ever made. I had done Natural Sciences at University and then became a Chartered Accountant. As such, many of my early roles in banking were audit-finance-risk-based. Needless to say, that was the perspective from which I traditionally viewed organisations and their strategies. I realised that this had to change. Cass enabled me to make that change and since my MBA I have been able to take a much more holistic and human view of organisations and their strategies.

What is your most treasured memory of your time at Cass?
That has to be the residential weekends. More often than not we had to work in teams and the camaraderie and teamwork that developed made for a wonderful learning experience. It was also great fun. One particular weekend was structured around music and advertising in order to develop our creativity. At the end of it, we all went home feeling far more creative than when we had arrived.

How has your career developed since you left Cass?
Cass gave me the ability to focus on the wider strategic perspective and more particularly the importance of the human aspects within organisations. Afterwards, my career moved from audit-finance-risk-based to strategy and people development. Ultimately, it has enabled me to write two books which focus on how and why organisations must develop and deploy their human assets in order to facilitate economic and competitive sustainability.

What is your new book about?
The new book is called Clearing The Bull and my hope is that it does exactly what it says on the cover. It focuses on banks and the subprime crisis and the extent to which governments, regulators and bankers have resorted to the same old remedies of more regulations, more governance and controls—as if these had worked after previous crises. Without literally clearing the bull, they will be unable to see that the real issues are about people and values.

What prompted you to start writing the book?
I was sitting down on my sofa one evening watching Sky News when a journalist started talking about “these casino banks”. That was the final straw for me as. It was just another example of the fact that the debate on the future of banks has generated more heat than light. I believed that there is a real need to reverse this and engender more enlightened thinking. It was for this very reason I wrote the book in manner that makes it accessible to bankers and non-bankers alike.

When and where will the book be available?
Clearing The Bull is now available from major bookstores as well as online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

What do you hope to achieve from your survey?
The survey focuses on the main themes in the book and specifically asks both bankers non-bankers questions about such issues as the industry’s approach to customers and the community. It will be interesting to see whether or not and to what extent there is a perception gap between the two parties. I invite everyone to participate and tell their colleagues and friends about it. The link is here: Clearing The Bull – A Survey on Banks and the Financial Crisis.

What does the future hold for you?
That depends on the success of the book or perhaps even more importantly the extent to which I can get across the message contained within its pages. If the latter can be accomplished then I would love to help banks undertake the kind of human transformation that I believe is a must if we are to avoid the next financial crisis. Failing that, it will be back to my regular contracting and consulting until I can get that message of human transformation through.

For further information - www.ledwidge.com