MARK FLORMAN
Mark is a businessman and entrepreneur active in policy making. His mission has been focused on driving and measuring economic & social impact and harnessing human potential.
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There is increasing ubiquity in considering the ‘impact’ business has on people and places. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are mapped by corporations, ‘social enterprises’ are abounding, governments are launching ‘social impact bonds’ and there is integration of ESG considerations into financial analyses by traditional investors. Even archetypal profit-focused investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, include ESG and impact activities in their business. The notion of the social impact of business has become so mainstream that government at the highest levels – including G8 leaders and even the Pope – advocate the creation of institutions to give greater attention to driving social impact.
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The art of war
Our global leaders have adopted the language of war to fight pandemic. From WHO to Whitehall, Covid-19 is the invisible foe/unknown enemy/silent killer we must unite to battle with blitz spirit and war-room tactics. In Britain – where memories of a ‘good war’ stir in us more warming national pride than dread – we are…
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A new nation
Every crisis is a war of ideas. The legacy of Milton Friedman – the great architect of shock economics – illuminates how the fever of disaster burns away precedent; and that what is usurped and adopted is largely a question of what ideas are lying around at the time. It is the work of believers…
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The hard stop.
It is a particular piece of cosmic humour…. that we have a pandemic that forces each of us to be an island in order to realise what it means to be human together. – Ben Okri The Virus: unprecedented. Incomprehensible. Also predictable, and predicted – many, many times over. Crisis brings clarity. As the dust settles on…
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How to argue with a racist
The pseudoscience of racism is nothing new. From the very earliest encounters with people of different colours, dominant groups have used notions of hierarchy, purity, strength and intelligence to justify enslavement, extermination or extraction. We are, as genealogist Adam Rutherford notes, extremely visual creatures. The compulsion to otherise and categorise based on what we see…
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The rehab industry
Gareth Malone’s The Choir, staged this season with some of Britain’s most persistent young offenders, has got the nation talking about prison. It’s a debate that treads predictable lines. But the commonality of conviction rarely enters the fray. It’s an extraordinary yet little known statistic about life in Britain today: if you are a man…
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The quick wins of intergenerational living
Our new government declares an interest in establishing a new era of evidence-based iconoclasm. Dominic Cummings writes that he intends to leverage the intersection of skills, fields and ideas to ‘radically improve how people make decisions in government’, and he is seeking new expertise, new approaches and ‘cognitive diversity’ to support it. This is timely. Transformative…
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The new leaders
There is one viable form of leadership for our times. INSEAD’s Professor Petriglieri gives it voice when he describes ‘an individual who is willing, able and entrusted to embody, and help to realise, a story of possibility’. Consistent, lived values. Steady – and steadfast – action. Unflinching, clear-eyed belief in the power of the individual and the spirit of the collective.
Tipping points
The modern condition is best captured as a series of multiple, interconnecting tipping points: the Pandora’s box of cause and effect, with no knowing where the domino trail will end. These tipping points – environment, social and economic – are the tight-ropes we walk daily; some with our eyes wide open, some with them closed; the rest peeking non-committally through finger cracks, hoping the wind doesn’t change.