Tomorrow's Business Today
Former Barclays CEO seeks top flak
Jes Staley needs his own PR person, and right quick.
His abrupt departure from Barclays yesterday means he can no longer rely on the (excellent) in-house team for help.
But if he is serious about fighting whatever the findings against him are in the coming FCA report into his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, he needs a spin doctor.
A thick-skinned man, or perhaps better, a woman, of integrity, and fortitude.
Someone who is going to stick with him to the bitter end, to offer him the loyalty he so mistakenly offered others, including Epstein.
It would be understandable if the biggest names in City PR don’t fancy it, if they regard Staley as toxic.
Yesterday, someone asked me to go on the radio to say why I like him and my instinct was to run 1000 miles.
Historically, in order to justify its fees, the PR trade has tended to say that even the worst clients deserved a defence. You can’t just have a functioning legal system for people who are not guilty, is the lawyer’s equivalent of this.
“We were the next cab up”, the defensive PR man would say of his work for Global Pollution Inc.
Because the Staley story has a link to sex crimes, it’s a brave move to step forward, to say you believe in the man.
Getting dragged into all that could plague you forever.
Someone should though. Someone really good.
Press release of the day
Over a third of white-collar professionals would turn down a job from a company with a poor environmental record, says this from Robert Walters.
That would still seem to leave a high majority that don’t care less, or at least not enough to refuse a pay rise.
It’s an interesting survey. Makes you ponder your own attitudes….
