MY FIRST experience of work was spending three weeks in a factory in Surrey (when there still were factories in Surrey) winding something around something for eight hours a day.
To demonstrate how much I disliked it, catching mumps (not usually a pleasant experience for a teenage boy) was a welcome relief.
After university, my first proper job was with British Airways, where I stayed for 23 years. BA was a microcosm of the world – working there you experienced war, famine, tramping the globe and incredible degrees of change!
In 1976, at the height of the Cold War when the Soviet Union appeared an unassailable monolith, I was posted as general manager to Moscow.
I had previously travelled behind the Iron Curtain as a student and had developed an interest in Eastern Europe.
At that time, all foreign airlines traded via Aeroflot – but I found ways of working with Soviet bureaucracy, ways of understanding it and using it constructively. It was very challenging. Moscow was where I learned most about managing people – and about myself.
Even though we lived a privileged existence in a foreigners’ compound, the box of fresh fruit and vegetables that ‘fell off the back of a Trident’ each week was very welcome!
After returning to the UK, I worked under Colin Marshall as a member of the Marketing Policy Group which masterminded much of the airline’s rejuvenation. This was a time of huge change for the National Carrier, with BA in a steep climb to its pinnacle as ‘the world’s favourite airline’.
Priority was to increase the customer focus in an increasingly competitive environment and introduce a market-driven attitude and way of working.
In 1985, I was posted to New York, which is an amazing city and probably the only one that can give London a run for its money. It was the post-Laker era, with only a moribund PanAm, an embryonic Virgin and a declining TWA to contend with.
I started by asking some fundamental questions – like why BA only had one flight a day into LA, Chicago and San Francisco. Just see how many there are now! I also renumbered the Concorde flights as BA1, 2, 3 and 4.
My next posting was to Berlin as general manager – a great personal experience. In November 1989, shortly after East German leader Erich Honecker had declared “the wall will stand for 100 years” I watched my children help knock it down and we mixed with a million Berliners on the road Unter den Linden on the day of unification.
Subsequently, BA gave up its rights on the German Internal Services. From having a fleet of aeroplanes to play with – and being responsible for their profit and loss – I found that effectively my job in Berlin was finished.
I left BA in 1991 joined the Royal Mail, which was highly challenging.
As chairman of the Stamp Advisory Committee, it was my signature that went in front of the Queen for final approval of who (or what) appeared on stamps.
When I joined London Tourist Board and Convention Bureau as managing director in 1996, it was my aim to raise the profile of an industry which is one of the three largest in London and employs some 250,000 people. My hardest job is to persuade the broad spectrum of businesses that benefit from the £8bn spent by tourists in London that they should throw their support behind the tourist board.
The easiest part of my job is that I have a fantastic world city to sell, a city with everything (apart, from palm-fringed sandy beaches and mountains).LTB works as a marketing and advocacy body, but receives less Government money than a lot of people think.
Our most consistent source of income is membership subscriptions, but we are forced to watch every penny and seek co-sponsors for virtually all our activities. One of our greatest challenges is information provision to both trade and consumer, at home and abroad – I see the development of our Internet site as being crucial.