The story behind why a company based in King’s Cross in London, not Silicon Valley or Detroit in the US, may hold the answer to self-driving cars being on our roads This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit offtolunch.substack.com

What skills does it take to run one of the UK’s biggest companies for a decade? What does a business leader do when an activist investor demands you change your strategy? How is the UK really doing with its net-zero ambitions? And why should a leader be concerned about wet paint? All of that and more are covered in the latest episode of Business Leader as we speak to Alistair Phillips-Davies, one of the longest-serving chief executives in the FTSE 100… This is a public episode. If you...

The story of how Metro became the most-read daily newspaper in the UK after launching in 1999. How did this newspaper - which is free - disrupt a highly competitive industry and then survive a string of big challenges? We speak to Deborah Arthurs, the editor-in-chief, and Richard Thomson, the managing director… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit offtolunch.substack.com

The story of how Sydney-born Dan Labbad rose through the property industry to become chief executive of the Crown Estate and be tasked with the extraordinary challenge of “creating lasting and shared prosperity” for the UK. This episode explores the history of that unique organisation, its £16 billion collection of assets that range from Regent Street in London to the seabed around the UK, and how Labbad’s approach to management has been shaped by the discrimination his Egyptian father...

Why does a business that was previously thriving end up failing? What tips a struggling business into insolvency? Find out all that and more in the new episode of Business Studies. Retail boss Ian Shepherd discusses what it was like being chief executive of video game retailer Game when it collapsed into administration and what his experience and the demise of discount chain Wilko tells us about why businesses collapse. A summary of our discussion: “Gradually, then suddenly.” Ian Shepherd now...

Andrew Brem, the general manager for Uber in the UK, discusses the growth of the taxi app, the controversies it has faced, and why London and electric cars are key to its future Get full access to Off to Lunch at offtolunch.substack.com/subscribe

Garry Wilson, the co-founder and managing partner of Endless, explains how he built one of the UK’s largest private equity firms and why his journey from Belfast to Leeds helps to explain why the private equity industry does not deserve its controversial reputation Get full access to Off to Lunch at offtolunch.substack.com/subscribe

Former Google and Stripe executive Claire Hughes Johnson tells the inside story of how those two companies went from promising tech start-ups to big businesses, and how it was often chaos behind-the-scenes… Get full access to Off to Lunch at offtolunch.substack.com/subscribe

Richard Price, the managing director for clothing and home at Marks & Spencer, explains how he is trying to put the spark back into one of the UK’s leading fashion brands and how, after years of false dawns, success should be sustained this time. Plus he discusses a career in retail that has spanned Next, Sir Philip Green and Tesco. And why Brian Clough is such an inspiration… Get full access to Off to Lunch at offtolunch.substack.com/subscribe

Business Studies is back with a new season of episodes. In the first episode of our new season we look at the story of how Yorkshireman Richard Harpin built Homeserve into a £4.1 billion company despite the business nearly failing twice in its early years. It is a story that involves unexpected twists, setbacks and lessons about how you really build a business that Harpin now wants to share with other entrepreneurs and leaders Get full access to Off to Lunch at...

The remarkable story of how Arm became one of the most successful and talked-about technology companies that Britain has ever produced. What does Arm actually do so well? Why is Apple so key to this story? And should the £24 billion sale of the company to Japanese investor Softbank and its charismatic founder Masayoshi Son have been stopped in 2016? All of these questions and more are explored with James Ashton, author of a new book on Arm called The Everything Blueprint: The Microchip Design...

The story of how Teach First became the biggest graduate recruiter in the UK, the legacy it has left, the controversies it faced, and why Brett Wigdortz, the founder, is now focused on improving pre-school childcare in the UK Get full access to Off to Lunch at offtolunch.substack.com/subscribe

Oxford Nanopore Technologies is one of the most promising and exciting companies operating in the UK today. Its handheld devices read genomes and mark a new era for how easily and quickly DNA can be sequenced, which should have significant benefits for health and fitness. In this episode of Business Studies we speak to Gordon Sanghera, the chief executive and co-founder, about how the company was built, how it was inspired by the Arctic Monkeys, Brian Clough and Rinus Michels, and why he is...

What can businesses really learn from elite sport? How to sustain performance over a long period of time, according to Catherine Baker, author of a new book called Staying the Distance: The lessons from sport that business leaders have been missing. We speak to Catherine Baker about her new book and the lessons that matter from sport, including insights from the New Zealand rugby union team, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Chris Hoy, and Mel Marshall, coach of Olympic gold medalist swimmer Adam...

Will Shu founded Deliveroo with his childhood friend Greg Orlowski in 2013. Ten years on, Deliveroo is listed in London and worth nearly £2 billion. But a lot has happened in-between. In this episode of Business Studies, Shu discusses the story behind how Deliveroo was founded, how he built the business as CEO, its difficult IPO and the future for the online food delivery service… Get full access to Off to Lunch at offtolunch.substack.com/subscribe

Women were first allowed access to the London Stock Exchange only 50 years ago. There has been progress since then, but men continue to dominate the City, as well as the world of start-ups and venture capital. That makes Clara Melia a pretty rare success story. She worked in the City and then set-up her own business, Equitory, which helps companies with investor relations. In this episode of Business Studies we look at how she built her business, why women are still under-represented in the...

In the year 2000 the Dot-com bubble burst. The stock market value of internet-based companies had surged in the previous months and years. Suddenly their world collapsed. Many went bust and disappeared. In this episode of Business Studies we explore what happened, why it happened and what lessons can be learned and applied to the modern-day, when public and private markets are recovering from another sharp drop in the value of tech-based businesses. To do that we speak to Rob Hornby, the...

Miles Roberts has transformed DS Smith since becoming chief executive in 2010 and made cardboard boxes interesting. Today, DS Smith is a FTSE 100 company that makes recyclable packaging and paper, spanning 34 countries with 30,000 staff, including 36 sites and 4,300 employees in the UK. In the latest episode of Business Studies, Roberts, the sixth longest-serving boss in the FTSE 100, explains why packaging is way more interesting than you might think, how DS Smith got caught-up in the chaos...

Rishi Khosla, the co-founder and chief executive of OakNorth, tells the story of how OakNorth bid for Silicon Valley Bank UK during a frantic weekend in March 2023 and why the eventual deal with HSBC could be bad for innovation and start-ups. Aside from recent events, Khosla talks about building OakNorth into the most valuable fintech in the UK, the challenges it has faced since then, and his concerns about listing in London. Finally, the OakNorth boss sets the record straight on whether he...

Not so long ago Waitrose and John Lewis were lauded as model retailers. They had enjoyed years of rising sales and profits and, as part of the John Lewis Partnership, were owned by their employees. But now Waitrose is battling to turnaround falling sales and the partnership is losing money. Is being owned by staff part of the problem? Has it meant that Waitrose has been too slow to react to changes in how we shop? James Bailey, the boss of Waitrose, addresses those questions in the latest...

Andre Lacroix thinks that just about every major crisis in the 21st century was caused by a failure of leadership. He is so concerned about the quality of leadership that he has written a book about it - Leadership with Soul. Why is understanding risk so important for leaders? What can be learned from Ayrton Senna? Why is Toyota such an incredible organisation? Why did Lacroix go from wanting to being a surgeon to wanting to be a CEO? And why is London still the perfect place to base an...

Does Northern Gritstone, an organisation investing in promising start-ups coming out of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, hold the key to levelling up the UK economy? In this episode of Business Studies we speak to Duncan Johnson, chief executive of Northern Gritstone, about his ambitions to build a new Silicon Valley in northern England, why businesses in the north haven’t been supported enough, the terrible state of the transport network, and how to spot a promising business… Get full...

“Who holds back the electric car?” sang the Stonecutters in a 1995 Simpsons episode. You could ask the same question in 2023 Britain. The electric car revolution still feels a long way off for many people - cars are too expensive and it is difficult to find a working point charging point. But in this episode of Business Studies, Erik Fairbairn, the founder and chief executive of Pod Point, one of the largest providers of electric car charging points in the UK, explains why we all be buying...

James Daunt founded his own independent book shop and then rescued two nationwide chains that were heading for oblivion - Waterstones in the UK and Barnes & Noble in the United States. He has arguably done more than anyone else to ensure the survival of the local bookshop despite the rise of Amazon and e-reading. He is also one of the few business leaders to have enjoyed success on both sides of the Atlantic. In this episode of Business Studies Daunt explains with remarkable clarity how...

The UK has world-leading universities. It is one area where the country really can claim to be world-leading. But Britain’s universities have not been as good as their international rivals at turning brilliant ideas into brilliant businesses. That may be about to change though. The University of Oxford is thinking more than ever before about how to turn its ideas and research into businesses. In this episode of Business Studies we look at how. We speak to three people at the centre of a...