Lisa Gordon – Chairman of Cavendish
“Discrimination against fresh ideas is very worrying. The killer line in any business is, ‘Well, that’s how we do it.” – Lisa Gordon
This week, Chris Wright interviews Lisa Gordon. Lisa has been a top business executive for over 25 years. As a technology specialist, she has surfed the wave of the technological revolution from the infancy of the internet to this day where she is Chairman of Cavendish, the merger of Cenkos and FinnCap, a non-Exec at Alpha Group Intl – one of the fastest growth of companies listed on the UK Stock Exchange, as well as holding several other major non-Exec and advisory positions.
The conversation starts with Chris and Lisa’s work together at Chrysalis where they were at the forefront of technological change in the industry. They shine a light on what personal attributes caused their huge business success, and what led to their occasional failures. The second half turns to the country at large where Lisa provides some fascinating observations from her perspective as a business insider. They tackle the issue of sexism and all kinds of discrimination in the workplace, what can be done to ensure diversity and why it’s so important for business as well as social mobility.
We’d love to hear what you think of the episode at email@wrightonthenail.fm, or get in touch if you just want to say hi!
‘I Hit The Nail Right On The Head’ by Billy Bremner.
© Fridens liljor/Micke Finell.
Rock around the clock productions AB.
This episode was produced by Tom Platts
In this episode we discuss:
- How Chris gave Lisa her biggest career break
- How Lisa and Chris could have been Google, and why it all went wrong
- How technology has impacted the business of music
- The power and limitations of the City of London
- What’s wrong with business today and how to fix it
- The key guidelines for being successful in business
- How to foster gender diversity in the workplace and the importance of childcare
- Politics and Britain’s position on the world stage
- What Sunak should have done with HS2
- Meeting Gordon Brown and how he stays hopeful about politics
