Amanda MacKenzie in Davos

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The Marketing Society’s President, Amanda MacKenzie is in Davos. Here is her first post with more to follow tomorrow.

Well I went to bed too far into the early hours to be awake again, but here I am knowing that if I don’t blog now for yesterday I will forget all that happened and it will all merge into a blur. And as I often say, no one dies of lack of sleep alone…

I met David Jones and Kate Robertson for breakfast yesterday. David is the global CEO of Havas and  Kate runs EuroRSCG in the UK but they are most famous for setting up One Young World, a global initiative to bring young leaders of the world together .  It’s an amazing project! David has also just published a book called ‘Who Cares Wins’.  He works very closely with David Cameron.

I then met with the Head of Diversity for the Olympic Organising Committee Stephen Frost, very interesting . All the thought that has gone into diversity around the Olympics is impressive. They did not make people with disabilities feel they have been employed to satisfy a quota, instead short lists with disabled people on them were insisted upon, and that in itself opened up who got the roles.


I then enjoyed a session hosted by Clifford Chance and chaired by Robert Peston where several economists and business people discussed the future of the euro zone. The views were varied …one quoting Obama’s State of the Nation address where he ignored Europe altogether, another who believed a break up of the eurozone was inevitable, another who wanted us to appreciate what a single market union has enabled Europe to do. They said it is key to competitiveness in a world where European GDP relative to the world has lost 9 percent in the past couple of years.

The debate really got lively when Peter Mandelson, who was not on the panel, launched into a monologue about Europe and how anyone could ‘glibly ‘ discuss breaking it up and fail to recognise the consequences of that. A superb summary from the FT (apologies, I’m dreadful with names) who said that no-one had diagnosed the core problem, so how can it be fixed?

It was a good session but there are no answers here. And as ever lots of rhetoric.

I then met with Derek Scally of the Irish Times, followed by Swiss Re,  and then prepared for the evening session where I had a small speaking part .

The session was called Healthy Brains Healthy Economies.  It was to discuss the huge cost of mental health to society.  We had been asked to bring the perspective of an insurer and a corporate. I made three points. The numbers are huge.  This is estimated to cost 3  to 4 percent of European GDP, affects 450 million people in the world and one in 10 children. What we have learned is that intervention early in the workplace is key and that a healthy culture of openness and recognition will all help prevent mental health issues which are not genetic. The scientific work into this is amazing and Robert Horowitz,who chaired the session, has identified the complex set of DNA which lies behind mental health. Lord Richard Layard said, somewhat startlingly, that when they have mapped the most vulnerable times of day for people, it is when they are with their line managers. What an indictment….why oh why does work have to be so dysfunctional?

I then met with Steve King from Zenith Optimedia who runs our media buying worldwide, and sat in the bar with Keith Weed of Unilever and then Andrew joined us. It was a very jolly way to end a busy day and reflect on all that we had done. Andrew said that Boris Johnson was very good indeed at the Barclays dinner…and hopefully I will get to see him later.

Look out tomorrow for another Davos post from Amanda.

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Posted: January 26th, 2012 | Author: will.armstrong | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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