2022 CEO & Chair Dinner: An Evening with Andrew Griffith, MP

It’s been three years since our last CEO & chair dinner, and what a three years it has been. In his opening remarks, Kester Scrope our CEO, pointed out that the pandemic, while resulting in unparalleled disruption, had underlined something we all knew to be true: the value of strong leadership.

As executive search professionals we found ourselves in the thick of helping organisations find the sort of CEOs and board members who could lead successfully in such a challenging environment. Because of this, last year we enjoyed our strongest year of growth, doubled our U.S. business, and opened offices across Latin America. We also innovated, introducing new ways of working, implementing new technology, and injecting fresh blood into the business.  

It's a story which was mirrored in the sentiment of our speaker, Andrew Griffith, MP for Arundel and South Downs, director of the Number 10 Policy Unit, the UK’s 'net zero business champion', and former CFO of Sky. 

“We mustn’t be afraid to communicate the value of business”, he told some of the UK’s top CEOs and chairs. “To connect with society we need to be good at making the case for the core purpose of business, which is business.”

This is something the pandemic made very real for all of us. It is thanks to business that we had food on supermarket shelves, petrol for our cars, and energy to heat our homes. Business invests in infrastructure, takes risks, creates jobs, and creates wealth. “Business is not just there to be taxed; it is a force for good in society and we shouldn’t take this for granted,” he said.

Government’s role is to enable: “to create an environment for businesses to succeed.” As part of this, he pointed out that Number 10 has created a dozen freeports, an enterprise allowance, a new investment office, new high performing talent visas, and trade deals across India and Asia. This, according to Griffith, is how the UK will succeed in competitive markets in a world outside of the EU.

And competing globally is certainly important for the UK. The UK doesn’t export commodities to any significant extent. “Our exports are services, education, property, and advanced manufacturing. One in every three pounds is international – we rely on free trade and overseas markets for prosperity.” This is the foundation for what he reports is the Government’s aim to be the largest economy in Europe.

Questions from the audience were closer to home: what was the government doing to alleviate the regulatory pressures on businesses? “Our aim is to reduce the burden of regulation on businesses, but Covid meant that legislation that was due to be implemented to help, has been pushed back.” To help accelerate the reduction in cumbersome regulation, there is, Griffith explained, a regulatory task force looking into the interplay between competition and sectoral regulation.

And how are businesses expected to compete effectively with such comparatively high tax rates, another audience member asked? While the UK has some of the highest taxes, Griffith pointed out that the country “has the some of the highest borrowing.” He explained that, as a nation, we have one of the easiest systems for business tax and have a low tax rate for business investment. 

Finally, when asked about the Government’s commitment to halting climate change he pointed to the 2050 targets set out by the Prime Minister at CoP26. “We’re the only country to commit to ending new sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and we’re one of the only countries piloting large scale carbon capture and storage initiatives,” he explained. What’s more, “the UK already has floating offshore windfarms and has some of the largest offshore energy generators.” Part of the impetus behind this is down to weaning the UK off hydrocarbons sourced from kleptocratic regimes.

However these critical challenges play out, Odgers Berndtson was delighted to host the minister, Andrew Griffith MP whose highly successful career as a business man with his positivity and optimism were refreshing in a world that is increasingly fraught with geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty.