What Next For London?

Caroline Artis, Senior Partner for the London Markets at EY and Neil Aitken, London and Southeast Lead at BT Group join Laura Osborne and David Lutton to talk about the future of doing business in London and what this means for digital connectivity and skills, as well as the traditional office. While things will no doubt be different in the future, there remains a core component of staff desperate to get back to their desks.

Mark Essex, Public Policy Director at KPMG, spoke to David Lutton and Laura Osborne about the trends shaping the capital’s recovery – which ones are likely to be accelerated and which are too early to call. From how you harness the benefits of in person collaboration in a more online world, through to what next on Brexit, Mark gives us a tour of his current thinking on the city’s big issues.

Mark Reynolds is the Group CEO of Mace and a London First Board member. In conversation with Jasmine Whitbread, London First’s CEO, he shared his thoughts on the role of the construction industry in the COVID-19 recovery, what the crisis has meant for his business and the cross-sectoral lessons that we can all learn, as we chart the path back to growth.

The events industry was hit hard and fast by the COVID-19 crisis and has had to rapidly transform how it operates. Our guest, Elizabeth Forrester, has led events teams for many years and is currently the Head of Events at London First. She shares her take on how events will evolve, the lessons from virtual engagement and why the future of the events industry is so closely connected with the future of work.

Phil Baker is usually London First’s interim head of strategic communications but for two weeks earlier this month he was seconded to help set up NHS Nightingale’s comms function. Phil shares his experience of this crisis, talks about how it shaped his view of the recovery ahead and ends on the need for someone to invent a much better virtual whiteboard.

Brendan Sarsfield, CEO of Peabody Group, gives his view on some key lessons from the COVID-19 crisis, from tackling pre-existing issues with Universal Credit, to the desperate need to make home ownership a reality for the next generation of Londoners. He sets out some of the choices we must make now if we are to have a strong recovery.

London First’s Director of Strategy and Policy, John Dickie, shares his reflections on the initial response to Covid-19 across the capital and what must happen next to set us on the road to recovery.

What has the initial response to Covid-19 highlighted about London’s infrastructure, both physical and digital, and how it will need to evolve in the future? The pilot episode of London First’s new podcast, What next for London?, asks in-house infrastructure expert Daniel Mahoney to share his thoughts on how the city should to evolve as the result of the current crisis. London has emerged as the initial epicentre of the virus in the UK and had already started to change ways unforeseen ahead of the lockdown. A few weeks in, we start to look at the impact and beyond it, to what must come next. Host Laura Osborne talks to Dan about the potential impact on the demand for digital connectivity, funding for transport infrastructure, what that might mean for the Government’s levelling-up agenda and how devolution fits in.