OXFORD’S PLACE IN THE GLOBAL MARKET An evening with Lord Digby Jones Business leaders representing leading global companies based in Oxfordshire recently attended an evening dinner with Lord Digby Jones at the prestigious Divinity School within the Bodleian Library. The event was hosted by leading law firm, Freeths Solicitors and Accountancy and Business Advisory firm, James Cowper Kreston. Written by: Sian Hewitt, Freeths Solicitors Photography by: Freeths Solicitors
Left to right are: Simon King, Lord Digby Jones, Leon Arnold, Sue Staunton
With over 60 guests in attendance representing industries ranging from bio-tech, education to property and construction that all contribute to the widespread Oxfordshire business landscape and the UK economy. The evening opened with networking in the beautiful surroundings of the Divinity School allowing guests to take the opportunity to catch up with their business peers while others took the opportunity to make new introductions before taking their seats. The business theme for the evening was Oxford’s Place in the Global Market, which was to be led by the keynote speaker, Lord Digby Jones. Lord Digby Jones is no stranger to the principles of business and how the UK, Europe and Global economies operate. He has served as Director General of CBI and the Minister of State for Trade and Investment. Prior to this, Lord Digby Jones spent twenty years at law firm Edge & Ellison, where he reached senior partner level. He received his knighthood
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in 2005 for his services to business, making him the right keynote speaker to lead the discussion among the business leaders in the room. On building up to the topic of Oxford’s Place in the Global Market, Lord Digby Jones began discussing something everyone is familiar with in Oxford, which was of course the amazing colleges it has to offer. He continued to take his guests on a trip down memory lane by regaling stories of his initial interview with Trinity College when applying to the University of Oxford as an undergraduate, which he then went on to explain it did not go according to plan. It was some many years later that Lord Digby Jones attended Trinity College as a guest and was asked by a fellow of Trinity why he never considered attending Oxford as an undergraduate. Lord Digby Jones humoured the guests in the room by saying he didn’t have the heart to tell the fellow what happened at his interview all those years ago.
He continued with his talk on Oxford’s Place in the Global Market, which included his views on Brexit, trade deals, UK population increase, and the public sector in respect of doing more for businesses. Throughout his talk he made clear how important Oxford businesses are to the local and national society, and how they are a vital component to keeping the economy moving. He also touched on other subjects such as technology and the differences it makes for modern businesses, the negative and positive communities it can create and how we have lost a lot of human interaction with one another due to the disruption of mobile phone technology, in particular society’s interaction with social media. Education in Oxfordshire was also on the agenda discussing ways to get the younger generation into businesses and how to keep them there. The talk also covered topics such as innovation in today’s current market, how do you keep on top of the pile and where do we go from here? The talk ended with an extremely interesting and extensive Q&A session in which
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