Every time I work with the SpeakersHub team, I'm blown away by the quality of people on their roster and the access they have to a who's-who of innovative, provocative and leading edge thinkers and leaders. If you want to build knowledge and get insight from people who are at the very top of the latest thinking and leaders in their field then Sarah and the team are the people to talk to.
Biography
As CEO of Guardian Media Group, David was responsible for the remarkable digital transformation of the business by adopting agile working methodologies and putting data driven, customer centric practices at the heart. This resulted in The Guardian going from a forecast loss of $100m in 2015 to its first operating profit for 25 years in 2019. The three-year business plan to transform the Guardian that David implemented has been described as one of the most significant media turnarounds in recent history and has laid the foundation for how quality journalism could be funded around the world.
The strategy was built around growing a far deeper set of relationships with the Guardian’s audience, doubling down on its purpose, a re-imagining of the journalism, a sustainable business model and a newly focused, data driven, agile, digital organisation that reflected the paper’s independence and mission.
David can share what it is to lead in a context of constant change, where the only certainty is disruption. He describes with extraordinary candour what it’s like to face unprecedented corporate challenges as a leader, the need for constant and transparent dialogue with employees, the introduction of OKR’s (objectives and key results) and small cross-divisional teams to encourage fast-paced innovation, the need to lead through purpose, as well as never losing sight of why you exist as an organisation.
David can also share his most recent experience of being an entrepreneur; the importance of accepting – and learning from – failure, and knowing when to walk away. He will talk of leading from the front, middle and back and knowing when to step in and when to step back – and why leaders have to push themselves to address the issues of inclusivity and diversity.
In his current role as Chair of the British Fashion Council, a non-profit organisation that supports emerging designers in the fashion and creative industries, David is learning to navigate his new reality of letting go and ‘not doing’ but supporting the exec team to implement the strategy.
David is also a voting member of BAFTA. He was voted Media Leader of the Year in 2019 and regularly speaks on leadership at London Business School.