Drew Hillier - Articles and news items

That is the question!

Blog / 11 October 2010 / Drew Hillier

There is nothing like a great question to kick off a lively debate and one thing that the Sibos programme illustrates is the importance of a carefully worded leading question, which can be more important, perhaps, or more interesting, sometimes, than the actual answer. (more…)

I didn’t get where I am today…

Blog / 20 September 2010 / Drew Hillier

The evocative portrayal of corporate Britain in the second half of the twentieth century, laid bare in the 1980′s TV sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, has somehow pushed itself to the forefront of my mind as I pen this, my very last jottings from the Editor’s chair. The contrivance at the heart of the Reginald Perrin series, (or franchise, as I guess it might now be called) concerned a middle-aged middle manager driven to bizarre behaviour by his job at a company well past its sell-by date. And jolly funny it was, too. (more…)

Time to go long… fast!

Blog / 12 August 2010 / Drew Hillier

With that peculiarly infuriating demeanour of a primary school teacher patiently imparting a mild rebuke to a seven year-old tearaway, the motorway police officer uttered those immortal words that hitherto I thought were solely the stuff of seventies sit-coms: “Who do you think you are… Stirling Moss?”

Crouching next to the open window of my car, (a flashy red sports convertible, described by my daughter Lauren as ‘a mid-life crisis on wheels’), the cop’s words struck a chord far more acutely than he could possibly have intended. For indeed, yes, at that moment – or rather, the moments leading up to seeing his flashing lights in my rear view mirror – I had indeed imagined I was one of the world’s greatest ever exponents of driving at speed whilst looking cool. Oh dearie me! (more…)

Under stressure

Blog / 14 July 2010 / Drew Hillier

For a few days at the end of June, a small, sorry, dysfunctional group of people became even more reviled in their country than bankers. Selflessly offering respite from banker-bashing, England’s ludicrously overpaid yet under-performing national football team drew their fellow countrymen’s fire, flying home from South Africa to face the awaiting hoards, whipped up into a veritable whirlwind of national apathy. As someone said: what we could do with around here is a revolution! In fact, we might be about to get one… of sorts. (more…)

What a difference a year makes

December 2007/January 2008 / 19 December 2007 / Drew Hillier

Despite efforts by numerous commentators and industry specialists to talk up a degree of optimism in response to the recent and ongoing credit crunch, the US subprime fallout, rather than re-introducing some much needed “desirable normality”, as former Barclays CEO Martin Taylor told us in September, there now seems to be a gathering head of steam from what began as a little local difficulty in the financial markets, to a full-blown economic downturn. And with a direct influence on global liquidity in the offing, what likely impact might we expect this to exact on the currency markets going forward? (more…)