In the business world, company turnaround success can usually be boiled down to answering four fundamental questions directly and bluntly. Who is the leader and what is their depth and breadth of leadership? Why is this turnaround really necessary? What is it they are seeking to do and in what timeframe? Their vision and strategy. […]

I am reminded constantly from my chemical engineering background that Oil and Water do not mix easily. That is, unless emulsifiers are added to the two naturally repelling liquids to create an emulsion. A delicious mayonnaise comes to mind. The critical question, in writing our book, Scotland 2070- Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, was not about

Michael Green, a well-named architect to promote environmental material, has given a great illuminating Ted Talk, ‘Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers’. He states that we are at the beginning of a revolution in building skyscrapers with wood, a skill required if we are to continue to urbanise at the pace we predict without damaging

What disappoints us about many aspects of the debate about Scotland is the simple lack of imagination and optimism. No John Lennon song, Imagine, to stretch the mind. Little vision of what we could do in the future. A procession of negativism about running out of fossil fuels or not, having a poor balance sheet

Recently I attended the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, nicknamed appropriately ‘Davos in the Desert’. This excellent event, typical in the Covid era, was a combination of in-person and virtual attendance of world leaders and 10,000 participants. The ‘ah ha’ moment for me was understanding one of the key planks of Saudi’s long term, post-oil

We have lived in Scotland, in England, in the USA (Texas, California and New York) and now in the UAE. I have travelled, mainly as a result of my job, to numerous other countries. I admire each country for certain things. In our book ‘Scotland 2070 – Healthy, Wealthy and Wise’ we spend time describing

Many people, especially in the USA and amongst free market thinkers, believe these two words simply do not go together. They think that the State is anything but entrepreneurial and entrepreneurs prefer small Government and no bureaucracy. It’s not as simple as that. If you want a full and excellent debate on this subject, we

We are extremely pleased that Gerry Hassan, author, commentator and journalist, includes Scotland 2070 in his annual list of ‘my favourite books of 2020.’ We appear among such august company as Val McDermid, Ian Dale and Oliver Letwin – and, Mary Trump! Also on the list is Booker prize-winner Douglas Stuart’s sensational first novel Shuggie

We had a great online launch event on 10th December. Francesca, Ian and Hillary talked about the book and some of the background to how and why we wrote it. There were lots of great questions from the audience and lots of people gave us really positive feedback afterwards – mostly that watching the webinar