Country & Town House: What it takes to be a Change Maker

A LIFE IN BALANCE

What it takes to be a CHANGE MAKER

Welcome

CHANGE MAKING AT C&TH RACE TO ZERO We have committed to reaching net zero by 2030. We hope many of our readers, brand partners and advertisers will join Race to Zero too.

B CORPS We have committed to becoming a B Corporation. Certified B Corporations balance purpose and profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community and the environment.

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hange comes in many forms and whether you’re actively seeking it or it creeps up on you unawares, there’s no doubt that change (both good and bad but always educative), we as humans cannot thrive and learn without it. Sometimes it’s the meeting of a person that can alter your way of thinking and make you see through a different lens (which is why diversity in the workplace, from junior exec to board level must be mission-critical), or it’s an opportunity that cannot be grasped without a change in something structural or what you thought was foundational. Either way, we applaud those who can effect change for the better – whether it’s personally, professionally or for the good of our whole race.

Take Arizona Muse. A model, yes and a beautiful, successful one at that. But in no way has that defined her. She looked around at the industry she was working in – fashion – and said this is just not good enough. Yet, instead of flouncing off and turning her back on the contacts she made, she worked from the inside to use her platform to call out the terrible things that go on (the environmental impact, the waste, the burning of stock, the misogyny, the poverty) and to encourage brands to do better. When it comes from someone you know and respect and not from an outsider, the message can be so much more powerful.

Everyone can make a change, and Change Makers celebrates those stories and inspires us to look at what we ourselves can do.

Lucy Cleland, Editor, Country & Town House

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SUPPORTING SUSTAINABLE BRANDS We pledge that 25% of our content – clearly flagged – will focus on brands, people and companies who have made similar sustainability pledges. #SUSTAINABLETUESDAYS We will only ever publish content online and on social media on Tuesdays that concerns sustainability.

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RECYCLING Each issue can be recycled in its entirety* (*on the rare occasion magazine features a gatefold advertisement, where the cover or an inside page opens to reveal an additional page that folds out, it uses laminate which renders the cover paper on those issues unrecyclable, so we suggest removing the cover and recycling the rest).

ON THE COVER: ARIZONA MUSE Model, Sustainability Consultant & Environmental Activist Arizona Muse’s career has taken her on a unique journey; in the last decade, this globally-renowned model has appeared on Vogue covers, on international catwalks and in the biggest campaigns. Now she is using her deep-rooted influence for a different kind of campaign, fighting for the fashion industry to have a more sustainable, environmentally conscious future. “This season’s must-have is the continuation of life on Earth”, she has declared. Read more about Arizona’s powerful call to action from the front line of sustainability on page 8.

Foreword

CONTENTS 2 WELCOME FROM

LUCY CLELAND Editor of Country & Town House 4 FOREWORD FROM

MICHAEL HAYMAN Host of Change Makers 6 QUESTION TIME

Change Maker conversations that make you think 8 ARIZONA MUSE

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elcome to this special Change Makers publication, created in collaboration with Country & Town House.

It centres on the idea that remarkable times are an invitation to think differently. Within these pages you’ll find features about relevant issues in these times of change and a selection of my Last Word columns, written for Country & Town House about a phenomenal collection of change makers.

Change Makers itself is a platform, powered by the campaigns firm Seven Hills, which amplifies the stories of people with a passion for making a difference. We delve into what makes them tick and the joy, difference and contribution this empowers them to bring to the world.

It presents fresh ideas and inspirational life stories from people – the campaigners, creators, connectors and contrarians – and the lessons listeners can draw from the lives they lead and the influences that have shaped them. It’s a tapestry of tales of our times, stories to inspire and conversations about ‘What’s next?’ – turn the page to find out more.

Change Makers launched with an annual Summit in 2018 and the podcast, which I host, followed in 2020; we have since welcomed hundreds of brilliant guests and collaborated with like-minded partners such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr & Mrs Smith, University of London, Scaleup Week and Great British Brands.

I am also a contributing editor for Country & Town House, and host of its Great British Brands x Change Makers podcast, and that’s where the stars align; not least because of the shared commitment to shine a light on the people and stories that can inspire positive outcomes. Like model turned activist and environmental consultant Arizona Muse, who I interviewed in April last year for the Change Makers podcast, and who features in C&TH’s Great British Brands 2021.

A big thank you to Lucy and the team for making this publication possible. Stay in touch with us on Instagram at @changemakers_works.

Michael Hayman, Host of the Change Makers podcast 4 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

ON CHANGE MAKERS Model turned climate activist and environmental consultant 10 A FREEDOM IN NOT FITTING IN

The magic of music with artist Beatie Wolfe 11 WHY IT REALLY

IS LOVE, ACTUALLY How director Richard Curtis makes things happen 12 WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Predicting the unpredictable with economist Dr Pippa Malmgren 13 DO THE RIGHT THING

Lord Karan Bilimoria on how diversity strengthens brands 16 CONNECTING WITH NATURE

How to understand the world with author Michael Morpurgo 17 THE GENERATION GAME

Time to listen to each other, says generations expert Dr Eliza Filby 18 SORROW AND BLISS

Lessons on how to live with failure from author Meg Mason 19 NO SOCIAL DILEMMA

How technology in business can be used for good 22 FINDING STRENGTH AND

SOLACE THROUGH MUSIC Why it is a source of power, as told by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

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‘I have learned that GOOD change comes from CARING about things. KINDNESS is often the SUPERPOWER that gets things DONE. It’s the fuel for POSITIVITY and it powers RESILIENCE’ LISTEN TO

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Question Time oes anyone have any questions for my answers?’ These are the words often attributed to the legendary US diplomat Henry Kissinger who once famously opened a White House press conference thus.

Think about it for a moment. Whatever you ask, I have a message and I am going to say it. For decades this style of message control has been the playbook for the powerful and to my mind there are a lot of problems with it, especially now.

First and foremost because the many challenges facing the world demand that we think about what it is that we are being asked and that we respond with authentic answers, not oft-repeated messages.

The art of the question – you know the one, the one that gets you to sit up and think, drop the stump speech and provide an answer that really matters to you. It’s been a quest for me to help make this happen in a course of interviews with an incredible cast of characters.

It’s the podcast I present, and it’s called Change Makers. Think The Canterbury Tales for a digital age. Then: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Now: the campaigners, the creators, the connectors and contrarians. Fresh ideas and inspirational life stories 6 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

from people making a difference, a tapestry of tales of our time and stories to inspire.

It is a collection of conversations that seeks to capture something of the radically diverse conditions in which we live today – from activists seeking social justice to climate campaigners, inspiring entrepreneurs and Nobel laureates. The result is a platform for people with a passion to delve into what makes them tick and the joy, difference and contribution this empowers them to bring to the world.

One of the things I love about the conversations is challenging my own pre-conceived perceptions. To paraphrase, interviews are like a box of chocolates; you never know how you’re going to feel about who you meet or what you might learn from them.

The unexpected turns are those that keep you thinking on your feet. As the interviewer you need to follow the answer, wherever that might take you.

One enduring trait I have learned along the trail is that good change comes from caring about things. Kindness is often the superpower that gets things done. It’s the fuel for positivity and it powers resilience.

Take model and activist Arizona Muse, on this publication’s cover,

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: Arizona Muse; Gordon Brown; Dr Scilla Elworthy; Yanis Varoufakis; Edeline Lee; Sheree Atcheson

PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES; UNSPLASH; PEXELS

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Michael Hayman recollects the Change Makers conversations that have made him stop and think

whose love for the planet is reflected in a stark call to action: ‘This season’s must-have is the continuation of life on earth.’ And, critically, ‘Let’s enjoy doing it, enjoy our lives and enjoy our connection with the world.

I didn’t have to travel a long way to understand that adventurer Charley Boorman’s road trip for life rests on the premise that if you say you’re going to do something then do it because you will be much happier. For screenwriter and actor Mark Gatiss his call-out is that while ‘history is a burden, stories can make us fly’. These were words he wrote for Doctor Who, but they also speak to a truth about the world and how we see it.

Immersive, performative and creative, designer Edeline Lee is the antithesis of what she calls a ‘culture of consumerism’ that tries to ‘fill the never-ending hole’, making us ‘insecure’ and ‘disempowered’.

From Edeline, I learned that a search for meaning fuels her career in fashion, while legendary children’s author Sir Michael Morpurgo is fuelled by love, hope and wonder; can we look on the bright side of life to help us understand the world, even in the most testing of times?

Sheree Atcheson’s message was this: ‘Demand more’. An incredible activist, adopted as a baby in Sri Lanka, the diversity and inclusion

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leader is defying traditional barriers for both women and ethnic minorities in tech so that she can make change happen. And how do you deal with a bully without becoming a thug? A different question posed by three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Scilla Elworthy, when she made the case for peaceful change which, for her, starts with taking the time to breathe and make sure you listen.

On the world stage, the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered advice on how to overcome the most pressing problems we face. While the Greek-Australian economist and firebrand Yanis Varoufakis, instead of a conversation about certainty spoke of the denouement of doubt.

It all leaves me wondering how people will look back at this age; the age of the lockdown. Did we learn the lessons and reset our lives and rethink the way we show respect for the world? Or did we miss the opportunities that change presents?

One thing is for certain: we will need ever better answers for a world full of questions waiting to be asked.

To listen to the Change Makers episodes mentioned in this article and many more, visit changemakers.works n Published in the September/October 2021 edition of C&TH

Arizona Muse Environmental activist, sustainability consultant and model.

Once endorsed by Vogue as ‘the new face of American fashion’, now fashion’s new face of activism

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ince the start of her career in 2010, Arizona has fronted campaigns and walked in shows for every designer from Burberry to Dior, as well as appearing on the cover of each major Vogue. Her career trajectory as a model was remarkable, and her success in the industry significant; Arizona is now using this deeprooted influence to campaign for a more sustainable, environmentally conscious and transformative future of fashion. She has protested alongside Extinction Rebellion and embraced the role of sustainability consultant for fashion

companies who wish to review their environmental impact. She sits on the board of The Sustainable Angle, a non-profit organisation that initiates and supports projects that minimise the environmental impact of the fashion industry, and contributes to Fashion Revolution, a team of brands, business leaders and policymakers who work towards radically changing the way clothes are sourced, produced, and consumed. “This season’s must-have is the continuation of life on Earth” sums up her motivation and sense of urgency to save a world that is running out of time.

A Key Question Michael: ‘I interviewed Tristram Stuart, the Toast Ale founder, and he said: ‘If you want to change the world, you have to throw a better party than those who are destroying it’. Is that part of your vantage point, that you can see things through a different lens when it comes to issues like climate action? You have something different, something new, that can move people and bring a different dialogue into their lives when it comes to the way they consider the future of the planet?’

Arizona: ‘So much so. Continuing with that party analogy, I have been to some of the world’s best parties and yet I am having so much more fun now in my activism and my sustainable life than I did before.’

Arizona On...

Arizona’s Lockdown List...

The nature of activism... “It doesn’t have to be shouty and

What are you watching? One Strange Rock on Netflix Who is your biggest inspiration? Rachel Carson,

it doesn’t have to be aggressive; it can be whatever you want it to be.”

The balance between action and knowledge... “We must keep asking why until we get to the truth.”

The power of publicity... “Imagine if the world responded to the climate emergency like it has to coronavirus; what action would we take?”

Democratising ethical fashion... “Sustainability has never been so stylish, but how can we overcome barriers to entry?“ Motherhood... “No one ever said I wish I’d spend less time enjoying life, and less time with my kids.”

The urgency of now... “A farmer once said to me, ‘Humans do their best work when they are in a hurry’. We do do our best work in a hurry. It really helped me feel that we’re going to do it together, and we’re going to do it fast.”

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the biologist who bravely started the environmental movement with her book Silent Spring.

Best tip for life? Grow. Whether you are developing yourself or nursing a houseplant – progression is immensely satisfying.

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@Arizona_Muse @arizona_muse

COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 9

LAST WORD ‘Musical weirdo and visionary’, Beatie Wolfe stands out by not fitting in

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Tales of our Time There’s a freedom in not fitting in, says Michael Hayman

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‘musical weirdo’ is how Vice magazine described Beatie Wolfe. But if you listen to her music, or experience her groundbreaking work, it’s likely you might use words like ‘amazing’ or ‘incredible’, instead.

It turns out that musical weirdo is about the only label Beatie is prepared to use to describe who she is and what she does. For her message is this: be yourself. Don’t let the need to typecast or stereotype put you in any given box. Create, don’t conform.

It makes me think about the age-old question: ‘What do you do?’. It’s one many find increasingly hard to answer and one that I always feel very limited by.

But don’t mistake the freedom of not fitting in as a proxy for opting out. This year, Beatie played and spoke at the inaugural Nobel Prize Summit and is one of nine female innovators deemed ‘impossible to ignore’ by the United Nations.

Pioneering new sounds and ways of consuming music that bridge the digital and the physical worlds, she’s beamed her tunes into space, created a wearable record jacket, and co-founded a research project looking into the power of music for people living with dementia.

The late neurologist Oliver Sacks has influenced her thinking. He wrote that: ‘Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears – it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.’ Orange Juice for the Ears is thus the title of Beatie’s 2019 documentary commissioned by the Barbican.

She also cites Mother Nature as her

inspiration and uses the words of William Blake that ‘nature is imagination itself’. And for her it is in nature that we can find joy, happiness and meaning. Because it’s the thing that makes us real. That means a rethink about life and its direction of travel to find rhythm and connection, not rules or certainties.

Her quote for life belongs to Jim Henson (aka Kermit the Frog): ‘As you start travelling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you’re going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won’t be able to refold it no matter how smart you are. So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can, pull over and have a picnic with a pig.’

After my chat with Beatie I left feeling that even a picnic with a pig might not be a weird thing to do. n

READ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks (Pan Macmillan, £12.99). LISTEN My interview with Beatie Wolfe on the Change Makers podcast (changemakers. works). WATCH Orange Juice for the Ears, a documentary investigating the impact of technological change on our culture and society (beatiewolfe.com).

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Published in the July/August 2021 edition of C&TH

PHOTOS: ROSS HARRIS; KIZZY

TA L K I N G P O I N T S

LAST WORD Want to be happy? You have to make the right choices – like Hugh Grant’s character in Love Actually

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Tales of our Time Why it really is love, actually, says Michael Hayman

‘Y

ou read it better than Hugh.’ Words for my epitaph. Words from the film maker and human rights campaigner Richard Curtis.

To explain, it’s love, actually.

No, it really is Love Actually and I was reading out Hugh Grant’s legendary opening voiceover, featuring the arrivals gate at Heathrow. The spine-tingling feel-good… wait for it… ‘If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.’

For a moment my mind is filled with delusions of grandeur: the musical score of Wet Wet Wet, a glittering future of Oscar red carpets and unforgettable scenes of silver screen splendour.

Luckily, for all concerned, it is a very brief moment. But moments, and how we use them,

it turns out, is also very much what Richard is about. His tip for life is that ‘to make things happen, you have to make things’.

They’re good words to live by. No matter how overwhelming things might seem we can all make a difference with the choices we make.

It’s one of the reasons that he created Make My Money Matter, a campaign to ensure that your pension is invested in things that make you proud – one that builds a healthy planet as well as delivering healthy returns.

‘What’s the point in retiring in a world on fire?’ is the very good question posed and the action you can take is to demand that fossil fuels, tobacco, and arms are not propping up your future. Turns out your pension could change the world.

While Curtis is one of the world’s most distinguished movie makers it is his activism

that increasingly defines him. He co-founded the charities Comic Relief, Make Poverty History, the Live 8 concerts alongside Sir Bob Geldof, and latterly the Forest For Change exhibition at Somerset House.

He offers me another tip. This time that ‘you can’t be happier than happy’ and it’s the statement that helps to understand his positivity in general and belief in particular that we can all be extraordinary. It’s more possible now, he says, because ‘we live in an age where people are opening up more’. To do this requires us to commit to ‘just do stuff’ and to enjoy what gives us the human touch: the emotion, the passion and the feeling and that allows us to relish the moment. This is actually what he means by love.

But in agreeing with this, alas, I feel it in my fingers and I feel it in my toes, that he was wrong about Hugh. n

LISTEN To my interview with Richard Curtis on the Change Makers podcast (changemakers.works). WATCH Our Planet: Too Big To Fail (ourplanet.com). UNDERSTAND Where your money goes (makemymoneymatter.co.uk). READ Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (Orion, £14.99). Is a life ever too broken to fix? A wonderful story, full of the right questions.

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Published in the September/October 2021 edition of C&TH

PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK

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LAST WORD The road ahead looks bright with promise

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Tales of our Time What happens next? asks Michael Hayman

‘T

he world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.’

Poetic wisdom from WB Yeats, inspiring our imagination with the promise of better days ahead. There’s no doubt 2020 will be remembered for the global gloom of the pandemic. But could it be that we look at this shared experience as the moment we became alive to new possibilities?

The arrival of a vaccine is a scientific and emotional game changer – a new narrative of when, not if, we can beat this common foe. For the generation of today it might well become the moment that lives long in the memory. The fork

in the road. The split second when we remember vividly what happened next. What did we find and what did we lose?

The former White House economist Pippa Malmgren says that, among fellow economists, the world is split on the question of what comes next. She draws literary inspiration: The Great Gatsby vs The Grapes of Wrath tribes. Like the books, both tribes offer extreme takes on what is to come, one of triumph and the other disaster. She thinks each outcome is possible, but neither is unlikely to endure.

The reality may be somewhat gentler and slower to reveal itself. Who have we become?

What will the legends of lockdown be that we share with generations to come? Will it be a time

that is remembered for the selfless or the selfish?

For good reason, more people have been asking themselves fundamental questions more often – questions about what it means to live and to love. And that shared experience of challenge could lead to change that brings a great many closer together rather than driving them further apart.

Churchill wisely said that the future is unknowable. We will all have to find our own path on an as yet undiscovered journey. But we should travel with mindful care because what we do next abounds with consequence. Our mindset in this moment will matter. Positivity will matter. In no small way this is the moment for our senses to grow sharper to the magic of the world around us. n

WATCH The French Dispatch. A star-studded cast, stylistic sets and a ‘ love letter to journalists’ by Wes Anderson. LISTEN The Fault Line: Bush, Blair and Iraq. David Dimbleby narrates this powerful podcast on how the events of nearly two decades ago set the scene for today. SCENT 71/72 by Floris London x Turnbull & Asser. Lavender, mandarin and sandalwood to see you through the winter (florislondon.com). TRY Glaze & Gordon. A British country store that offers something a little bit different for hounds, horses, humans and home (glazeandgordon.com). READ V2 by Robert Harris. Rockets, risk and relationships set in the final days of World War II (Hutchinson, £20).

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Published in the January/February 2021 edition of C&TH

PHOTOS: © JOHN TOWNER/UNSPLASH

TA L K I N G P O I N T S

Do the RIGHT THING Diversity will strengthen your brand and make Britain a better place, says KARAN BILIMORIA

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Photography by MISAN HARRIMAN

hen I arrived in Britain from India as a 19-year-old in the early eighties, my family and friends laughed uproariously when I told them I harboured plans to be an entrepreneur. They told me in no uncertain terms that, should I choose to stay in Britain, I had zero chance of making it to the top. They had a point. Though I had come to read law at Cambridge University, having already obtained a degree in commerce from the Osmania University in Hyderabad, the glass ceiling for ethnic minorities still stood firm as steel – unsmashable. In fact, I remember what a big deal it was in 1987 to see the first five ethnic minority members of parliament (four to the Commons and one to the Lords). Today, there are 115.

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I’m glad I didn’t listen to my friends and family. Nearly 40 years later, I am the firstever ethnic minority president of the CBI in its 60-year history. I’m a crossbench peer, a university chancellor and the head of Cobra Beer, a brand I started from scratch. I’m proud to say that Cobra is now a household name, a global brand that exports to 40 countries.

I had the idea for Cobra while at Cambridge, when I glimpsed how Thatcher’s Britain was beginning to open up to entrepreneurs. Having had a reputation in the ’70s for being Europe’s invalid, Britain in the ’80s was regaining its confidence and starting to thrive. Meanwhile, I predicted that India, a closed, protective country since independence, would emerge before long. Soon enough in 1991 it was officially liberalised and grew fast to become the world’s fifth largest economy.

Published in Great British Brands 2021

Summer 2020 saw the #BlackLivesMatter movement take to the streets. Photographer Misan Harriman’s powerful images of the protest were shared worldwide

I founded Cobra with a partner from Hyderabad and we began manufacturing beer in Bangalore. We began on such a tiny scale that we were not just SME but MSME – a micro, small or medium enterprise. Yet we grew by 40 per cent every year for our first 18 years. Today we have a joint venture with Molson Coors, one of the largest brewers in the world, headquartered in Chicago, and we brew in Europe and Britain and have 121 Monde Selection gold medals under our belt. When I look back to when we were first building our team, we hired people from all corners of the globe. We were like a mini-United Nations and today I recognise that it was precisely that diversity which gave us the energy and innovative spirit that drove us forward.

Diversity works but don’t take my word for it. Landmark research by McKinsey found that firms with the lowest rates of gender and ethnic diversity in their executive teams were an astonishing 27 per cent less likely to be profitable. A report

by Ruby McGregor-Smith, a life peer and incredibly successful British businesswoman in her own right, found that the lack of ethnic diversity in business costs Britain £24 billion a year in lost GDP. In an era that has seen Black Lives Matter grow into a substantial global movement, embracing diversity is obviously the right thing to do, but beyond that it is also the most advantageous and best possible thing you can do for your brand.

Brands simply cannot afford to go on drawing from non-diverse pools of talent.

Yet diversity on its own is useless. It’s no good hiring someone gay or disabled or from an ethnic minority background without being fully inclusive, because it’s the inclusion that is diversity’s motor and fires it up. Brands need to create an environment and culture in which everyone belongs and feels they can reach their highest potential.

Again, just look at the facts: a Deloitte survey found that when employees feel included in the workplace their ability to innovate increases by 83 per cent. The conclusion is simple: The innovative, profitable, competitive brands are those that are inclusive and diverse.

When I arrived in this country the food was fairly dismal and there was little variety. Today London has a well-deserved reputation as the restaurant capital of the world. That’s because it wholeheartedly embraced cuisine from diverse cultures, fusing tastes and spices from all over the world to create a dynamic food revolution. We have Tamarind, the first ever Indian restaurant to gain a Michelin star, but let’s not forget the bigger picture – Balti originated in Birmingham and chicken tikka masala is an entirely British take on a South Asian staple.

All British industries now stand on the cusp of a similar exciting creative revolution. Some have started and some are well along the way already. It’s going to take one final push.

When I became CBI President last June, my primary pledge was to make sure all those under-represented in business, whether due to background, ethnicity, race, disability, sexuality or gender, had the same chance as everyone else to reach the top.

This is not just about money. The murder of George Floyd showed the world what happens when people are discriminated against because of what they look like or where they come from.

George Floyd personified generations of hopes shattered, opportunities denied and, tragically, lives lost. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it has to be that we are beholden to and responsible for each other.

The luxury sector is enormously powerful and the brands that comprise it have the collective power to challenge and change the world for the better. My focus now is on the achievable, important goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the boardroom, as well as racial and ethnic participation in business. We’re still so far behind. Latest figures show that 37 per cent of FTSE 100 companies and 69 per cent of FTSE 250 companies still don’t have an ethnic minority director on their boards.

This is why I helped launch the Change the Race Ratio campaign last October, alongside my CBI colleagues and other British business leaders. The response was heart-warming and momentous but there is still a long way to go. So I am challenging Great British Brands to set targets and then be truly transparent about sharing their progress.

Most brands would hate to be accused of not having an inclusive workplace culture. But I hope all companies will take a really good look at their organisations and answer honestly that, yes, their workplaces are environments in which absolutely anyone with talent could thrive.

Nearly four decades after I arrived in Britain, I am living proof that someone from an ethnic minority background can prosper here. But beyond my personal success and that of Cobra, I hope I can draw on my personal journey to encourage every Great British Brand to join the campaign and do their utmost to establish a transparent, truly diverse, inclusive workplace culture.

So much changed in 2020.

For most it was a challenging, tough year of reckoning. Let it not to go waste. The luxury sector might have a reputation for being exclusive and beyond the reach of most, but the brands that exist within it are perfectly placed to help make society fairer for everyone. Consumers will love them for it – and are increasingly demanding that brands do the right thing.

Besides, I’ve shown that bringing in and nurturing diverse talent will only make their businesses more innovative and profitable. Research from McKinsey highlights that top quartile companies with ethnic and cultural diversity outperformed those in the fourth one by 36 per cent in profitability.

Certainty is particularly difficult in these times but from my own experience, I am very certain of one thing – diversity and inclusion work. The brands that step up to lead the way in this will be the ones to lead overall. A Great British Brand is a diverse, inclusive brand, a brand that shows Britain can drive progress and ambition and lead the way globally. Those brands will emerge from 2020 all the stronger and richer for helping to make Britain a better, fairer place for everyone to live in. n

Brands simply CANNOT AFFORD to go on drawing from a NON-DIVERSE pool of talent. They need to create a CULTURE in which everyone can reach their highest POTENTIAL

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This article by Lord Bilimoria CBE DL – founder of Cobra Beer, President CBI and on the Advisory Board of Seven LISTEN TO Hills – first appeared in Great British Brands 2021.

PODCAST Listen to his Change Makers interview here...

Published in Great British Brands 2021

LAST WORD Being in nature has many mental and physical benefits for children, as well as introducing them to ideas of conservation and environmentalism

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Tales of our Time

Michael Hayman talks to Michael Morpurgo about connecting children with nature

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hat is the countr yside t hey will write about?’

It’s a question much on the mind of the legendary children’s author Michael Morpurgo. The pandemic has clearly accelerated his concern about children finding their voices and caring about a rural future.

He finds inspiration from his late friend Ted Hughes, who, he says, believed that ‘to keep our eyes and hearts open makes us all storytellers’.

Seeing things for the first time with different eyes is the inspiration for Farms for City Children, the charity Michael created with his wife Clare. In explaining its work he points to David Attenborough, who makes the case that the future of the planet requires young

people to grow up thinking it belongs to them.

To do that children need to connect: to see it, smell it and feel it for themselves.

It’s part of a gentle environmentalism that the former children’s laureate espouses, providing an experience where ‘they are the farmers creating truth and integrity in their work’.

Love of the countryside is what led Clare and Michael to set up Farms for City Children in the 1970s. He describes the farms as ‘unbelievably beautiful places far into the countryside,’ which have welcomed over 100,000 children from big cities.

Michael speaks of his own suburban upbringing, which was peppered with visits to the countryside: ‘all very Agatha Christie with stock characters including the Major, the suspect and the villain.’

It’s not nostalgia that drives his farms,

rather the opportunity and empowerment of ‘discovering the countryside, the people that live in it and the creatures that live in it’.

But that is an experience the pandemic has put on hold and the effect is chilling. ‘Now we don’t have the children it is sad beyond belief,’ says Michael. ‘Empty and bleak.’ He is determined ‘to be here when the children need us most, when this is all over’.

That means being there for the children who can least afford it. Those trapped in cities.

Those at the heart of an emerging mental health crisis. The farms are needed for ‘the restoration of the spirits of these children, and the fields can help them recover’.

Nature is a precious asset. Memories are made of it. And the story of its future requires many more of us to care about it. n

READ Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas. The poetry of an idyllic childhood (available second-hand). SUPPORT Farms for City Children. Vital work to make 2021 a brighter year for children (farmsforcitychildren.org). LISTEN Michael Morpurgo’s Tales from Shakespeare, relocating Shakespeare’s iconic characters to contemporary settings (rsc.org.uk).

16 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

Published in the March/April 2021 edition of C&TH

PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES; PHIL CROW

TA L K I N G P O I N T S

LAST WORD Dr Eliza Filby specialises in ‘Generational Intelligence’

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PODCAST

The Generation Game

‘T

alking to Generation Z is like eaves-dropping on the future,’ says generations expert, Dr Eliza Filby. The reason being that this group (b. 19952012) has grown up in an era of unparalleled technological change, their lives framed and forged by the three Cs of the 21st century: climate, Covid and conflict.

‘We are all products of [our] time,’ Eliza tells me, but as a self-declared ‘geriatric millennial’ herself (ie born in the '80s), she clearly believes Gen Z are worth listening to.

Not everyone is so open to dialogue. In the current wars of the ages, Baby boomers (b. 1940s1960s) find themselves cast as the villains, since they are perceived as the ‘privileged generation’ who ‘have had a very lucky run of it,’ says Eliza.

This generational animosity runs both ways, of course. The frothy war on ‘woke’ is a favourite source of millennial-bashing in the tabloids, where polarising front-line issues include Brexit, transgender rights, climate change and poverty.

There’s nothing new in the so-called ‘rupture in values’ between generations, nor in youth’s ‘challenging of the status quo’. It’s what boomers did back in the Sixties, after all. But the internet has bitterly weaponised the generation gap.

Fortunately it’s not just a story of strife and loggerheads. Subtle shifts are taking place, which provide generational optimism.

Eliza calls it the rise of ‘the golden age of the family’, no less.

It turns out economic hardship and enforced lockdown – with remote working

and homeschooling – are teaching layered families to function together at close quarters. Understanding each other’s points of view strengthens the inter-generational dynamic.

Indeed, for all the stories of warring couples sprinting to a solicitor as soon as lockdown lifted, Eliza cites historically low levels of divorce and teenage pregnancies.

While the pandemic didn’t invent these changed living conditions, it has certainly accelerated them, bringing with it the prospect of seismic social change, from the way we live to the way we work.

For such change to be positive, Eliza says, all generations need to get better at listening to each other. It’s a thought for this festive season, because, whatever age you are, we could all do with taking time to think about the future.

TA L K I N G P O I N T S LISTEN It’s All Relative with Dr Eliza Filby (elizafilby.com/ podcast). WATCH Succession, season three – no harmony among the generations, I’m afraid, but what a story (Sky Atlantic/Now TV). ORDER How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight Four Our Future – by the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2021, Maria Ressa (Penguin, £16.99).

17 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

Published in the November/December 2021 edition of C&TH

MICHAEL HAYMAN IS THE FOUNDER OF SEVEN HILLS AND HOST OF THE PODCAST CHANGE MAKERS. PHOTOS: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Gen X or Gen Z – it’s time to start listening to each other, says Michael Hayman

LAST WORD Novelist Meg Mason, who gave up on writing before returning to pen the critical triumph Sorrow and Bliss

LISTEN TO

PODCAST

Tales of our Time

Michael Hayman learns lessons on how to live with failure from author Meg Mason

‘T

he end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.’ The observation of the eminent American novelist Ralph Ellison capturing the circularity of life.

It’s a favourite quote of Meg Mason, the author of the incredible best-selling novel Sorrow and Bliss (W&N, £14). It has been described as ‘a brutal, hilarious and compassionate triumph’.

She offered a clue to me about what inspired her writing when she told me that, ‘My journey was to decide to start again’. An intervention brought about by turning 40 in the middle of a career crisis when she gave up writing.

It was to be the proverbial darkest hour before the dawn, spurring her on to write about the human condition but with a passion born of

the belief that ‘this is my last chance and I didn’t hold anything back’.

She describes the book as a post-hope project.

One ‘where you think nothing good is ever going to happen and I don’t care’. But her readers certainly do care. The protagonist has been compared to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag and optioned for the big screen by Oscar-winning US studio New Regency.

One of the key characters in the book is called Peregrine, an urbane font of all wisdom. In one key scene he says that, ‘Nostalgia is the suffering caused by our unappeased yearning to return.’

Those words stopped me in my tracks and are worth taking a moment to consider.

Nostalgia comes from two Greek words, ‘nostos’ for returning home and ‘algos’ for pain. They explain a lot about regret and perhaps why we spend so much time trying to forget our failures.

For Meg, it helped her draw the conclusion that, ‘I have always found letting go of my failures difficult and forgiving myself for them nearly impossible, but I always thought it was a prerequisite to moving on. A year or two ago I decided to stop trying at self-forgiveness and just exist alongside my failures. To work around them but saying, I failed in these ways but, be that as it may, I am going to proceed.’ For Meg, she wants to exist alongside her failures because they are part of her, part of how she learns, the inescapable scar tissue of life.

We conclude our discussion with improbable inspiration from the children’s classic Woody, Hazel and Little Pip with its final words, ‘And so our story ends, just when everything is at its best.’

Perhaps learning to live with your failures is the lesson we all need to learn at the beginning if we want to live our best. n

TA L K I N G P O I N T S LISTEN Meg Mason on Change Makers (changemakers.works). READ Widowland by C J Carey. Incredible historical fiction described as the ‘most important feminist novel in decade’ (Quercus, £14.99).

WATCH Ray Donovan: The Movie – out 14 January.

SHOP Wadswick Country Store – a rural retail oasis Dubarry Down brogue with a superb restaurant in Wiltshire (wadswick.co.uk). boot. £269, wadswick.co.uk 18 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

Published in the January/February 2022 edition of C&TH

N

T

S CIAL

Recent times have proved one thing: we cannot survive without technology. We just have to ensure it’s used for the greater good, says MICHAEL HAYMAN

PHOTOS: REX FEATURES

DILEMMA

he Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma is sinister stuff, capturing our concern about the motives of the big social media companies.

Our fear is that these giants know what makes us tick and use that power to lure us into becoming digital addicts. In so doing they’re opening a Pandora’s Box of social problems that have been designed into the experience. For tech detractors this is the gotcha moment. The fallen angel is revealed to be manipulating us all for a fast buck.

But tech proponents see the film as pulp fiction rather than a revealing documentary. For them, technology has proven itself capable of a greater good, way beyond the remit of social media companies, and this year is proof positive that tech has found its finest hour, the modern marvel lifting the global gloom of the pandemic.

Not only did it keep us connected as we were confined to our homes, it crucially demonstrated that by working with science, it could develop medicines and mitigations to vanquish our viral adversary.

And if tech can crush Covid, think of the other social and environmental challenges it might be able to combat from here on in.

While there is boundless optimism about the future from techies, your personal view on where tech is taking us depends if you believe in the sunny uplands of digitally enabled lives or the inexorable descent into enslavement by the machine. But it doesn’t have to be so black and white.

Luxury goods providers upped their game in the Covid 2020 crisis and showed it’s possible to find a way between the two – making the most of digital opportunities to keep in touch with clients, without losing the personal touch, or the profit. Like many British brands, jeweller Theo Fennell used digital resources for reaching out to new clients as well as existing ones during lockdown. ‘New technology allowed us to talk to our customers, show them our designs and then keep in regular contact and show them the progress of the piece live from the workshop. We have also added more interactive shopping elements,’ he says, ‘such as the facility for mix-and-matching when buying our coloured crystal bottles and silver stoppers online.’

For some, the silver lining of lockdown was an opportunity to reset company goals, redirecting resources normally spent on travel and trade shows into developing designs and improving customers’ digital experience. Many British brands would echo what Jean Christophe Babin of Bulgari told us recently: that the pandemic delivered a complete change of ethos, using tech not only ‘to manage the company more efficiently’ but also ‘to have a better life balance’.

The goal of using tech for a better life balance – such as between our work, family, health and our impact on the environment – would have been laughed at back in the Eighties, when business manuals simply urged readers to make a fortune, and fast. The phrase, ‘I don’t believe in the no-win scenario’, could easily have come from the mouth of Donald Trump, but was in fact spoken by William Shatner as Captain Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In those heady days of the 1980s heroes won and villains lost, and this was the sort of no-nonsense optimism we flocked to the new multiplex cinemas to watch. Winning was the

Published in Great British Brands 2021

cosmic order of things and the proof was in the takings.

The message resonated then because we needed to escape the grim realities of the recently departed 1970s and the new challenges of the decade: the punishing spectre of recession, the AIDS epidemic, nuclear proliferation and the Cold War, to name but a few. Our search for optimism soon found a shiny new home, no longer on the silver screen, but in reality, in Silicon Valley, where Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were turning science fiction into fact.

Gates’ mission in 1989 was ‘a microcomputer on every desk’, while in 1994 a then-unknown Jeff Bezos purchased the domain name relentless.com, which would have been an apt moniker for the way he went on to conquer world retail and cloud computing through now-ubiquitous Amazon. These successes helped usher in a generation of billion-dollar entrepreneurs who believed tech made anything possible. As recently as 2014, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was widely quoted for his rabble cry: ‘Move fast and break things’.

But while the win-win approach delights the markets, the rest of us have become wary of growth at any cost.

The world of luxury retailing was late to the party and has often been criticised for resisting change. Family companies that proudly define themselves through centuries of hand-crafted tradition have sometimes been unwilling to rush into the tech fray, determinedly setting themselves apart from the Amazon-style profile of cheap goods being made available even more cheaply online. Prior to 2019, only ten per cent of all luxury goods were estimated to be online purchases.

But the pandemic accelerated change, spurred by a 2019 Bain & Company report claiming that a younger market for luxury goods was encouraging companies to up their game, and predicting that by 2025 around half of all luxury purchases will be digitally enabled.

That figure may turn out to be conservative. During lockdown, unable to lavish their typically small and exclusive band of loyal clients with the usual outings and treats, many luxury brands expanded their technological reach.

Rolls-Royce, which sells around 5,000 cars annually, had already established its exclusive Whispers app for customers, and used that platform to maintain a close relationship with clients during lockdown.

Open to all owners of the Goodwood-created Rolls-Royce cars since 2003, including staff from the chief exec down, it functions as a private, exclusive, virtual club for members around the globe. They can speak to individual craftspeople about their car specifications, take a virtual walk around the new Ghost, share their car collections with other members or generate ideas for private philanthropic work.

FROM LEFT: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is one of the controversial faces of social media; Hanifa’s A/W’20 fashion show debuted on Instagram Live via 3D models

COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 20

Crucially, when Rolls-Royce decided to expand its remit from mere motorcar maker to purveyor of an entire house of luxury, tech was at the heart of its reinvention. The car’s famous figurehead was digitally coded by Pentagram designers into the Spirit of Ecstasy Expression, the visual signifier of the brand’s new incarnation as a gateway to a luxury lifestyle, in which members can access the company’s ‘Muse’ moving image art programme or tap their ‘Luxury Intelligence’ concierge group for help with a post-lockdown ascent of Everest, designing a private race track or locating a rare Hermès bag.

Newcomers to the luxury scene, especially in fashion, are raising the tech bar even higher, borrowing from sophisticated gaming technology to create complex digital worlds for selling clothes. Last May, ready-to-wear label Hanifa hit the headlines by staging a digital catwalk show via Instagram Live, featuring 3D virtual models. Since then, Bigthinx Bangalore founders Chandralika Hazarika and Shivang Desai, backed by the Prada Group, have shown how AI and computer vision can be used to create not just immersive fashion shows but also visually exciting virtual store visits. Its bespoke software program Lyflike can create human avatars for personalised fitting, using customers’ personal data to digitise their body’s anatomy, shape, clothing size, fit and drape.

Meantime, for those of us hoping mobile commerce will be a route back to real meetings with real people in 2021, the news is that at-home services, from hairdressing to health and wellbeing, are a boom industry set to generate $870 billion between 2018 and 2022, says Bain.

Luxury concierge provider Toshi, helmed by Sojin Lee, has embraced the ‘bring-the-storeto-me’ ethos by creating an online, omnichannel algorithm enabling personalised home delivery for brands like Chanel, Roland Mouret, Christian Louboutin and Galvan. Currently operating within key areas of London and Manhattan, her trained retail assistants use public transport to deliver goods and offer at-home consultations, including hemming and alterations, thereby eliminating the cycle of delivery vans, brown boxes and returns.

‘It’s about using tech for responsible service,’ explains Lee. ‘We’re not asking brands to make more stock but helping them optimise it responsibly,

for conscientious consumption and sustainability. We’re like Deliveroo, part of an existing ecosystem, but Toshi’s tech brain does the calculation.’ She’s optimistic about the future. ‘Tech is about empowering human capabilities by providing logistics,’ she explains.

‘That fine sensibility of customer service, which is the essence of luxury, can only be delivered by humans. It’s our USP.’ The use of technology to reinvent traditional values of personal service, fine craftsmanship and long-lasting goods shows us all a way forward. The end of the pandemic is likely to lead not only to a huge sense of relief but also to a new sense of what it means to Toshi’s CEO Sojin Lee is bringing the personalised home delivery for live, love and express ourselves luxury brands to new heights, while – therefore it’s a chance to Rolls-Royce‘s Whispers app is a gateway to the world’s take more responsibility as most rarefied products, conscious consumers. services and ideas In 1947, Christian Dior captured the spirit of the post-war age with the New Look. It was the ultimate Parisian symbol of defiance.

The human spirit endures, and couture showed a way forward from the deprivations and cruelty of war. The New Look captured a euphoric return to freedom and the essential human need to express ourselves creatively. The undoubted pain and suffering caused by the current pandemic may well usher in a similarly exuberant resolve to live differently, express ourselves effusively and reset the world.

With the advantages of technology, luxury brands can help lead the way in showing us how to use technological advances not just to sell, but also to improve our social context, including taking responsibility for a fair deal for workers supplying luxury goods. We need to be aware of the consequences of what we buy, eat and wear –and how, not just where, we shop.

Technology can supercharge this purpose and transparently deliver the promise of change. This is the ‘win scenario’ of our digital age. It is based on this: that as individuals we can use technology to become more aware, ethically, of the decisions we’re making as consumers. And there is no social dilemma in that. n

With the advantages of technology, LUXURY BRANDS can help lead the way in showing us how to use TECHNOLOGICAL advances not just to sell, but also to improve our SOCIAL CONTEXT, including taking responsibility for a FAIR DEAL FOR WORKERS supplying luxury goods

21 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

This article first appeared in Great British Brands 2021.

To listen to all episodes of the GBB x Change Makers podcast, presented

by Michael Hayman, visit countryandtownhouse.co.uk/podcasts Published in Great British Brands 2021

LAST WORD Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

LISTEN TO

PLAYLIST

Tales of our Time Michael Hayman on finding strength and solace through music

‘K

eep it going!’

Word s of encouragement from a faded school report, offered to me by a music appreciation teacher with the terrible task of inspiring me with the classical greats. It wasn’t a lesson – it was a gift. The gift of escape. The gift of emotion. The gift of togetherness. All crucial components of the human experience so badly challenged by the isolation of Covid-19.

The host of the BBC Proms, Katie Derham sees much in our relationship with music.

Zoom choirs and lockdown musical events are creative responses to tough times. Music, she says, ‘creates the mood and soundtrack to our lives’ and provides an ‘emotional journey

where we can pause and breathe’.

Music is a route to community. I lost my sister-in-law, Lorraine, to cancer in lockdown.

As a flautist with the Bath All Comers Orchestra she found strength, friendship and purpose. In reflecting on her life, I have come to understand its empowering effect at a time of immense personal pain.

Because music is more than joy. It is part of the armoury of keeping our sense of self at a time of great distress and isolation. When times are tough people turn to music for solace.

As a supporter of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra I have found that if your perception of orchestral music goes no further than a white tie and tails then you really are missing its contribution. From cinematic and video game scores to community projects, it

provides something wonderful, all at whatever level works for you.

My youngest daughter is learning the violin and it strikes me that so many childhood memories often have music at the heart of them. But the talent pool of young musicians is defined by what parents can afford rather than a national commitment to delivering creative expression and exposure to diverse experiences.

Music helps people get to a better place. Take special educational needs and disabilities where music has a massive, proven and positive long-term impact on the participants. But these initiatives face a massive fight for survival.

So, keep it going. Not just the message of an old report but the urgent task of today. n

EXPERIENCE The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Brilliant! Search for it on youtube.com. LISTEN To The Sun King podcast. David Dimbleby delivers a tour de force on the life, influence and impact of Rupert Murdoch (audible.co.uk). WATCH Schitt’s Creek. Bottled sunshine and the warmth of laughter for cold winter nights. A total Emmy Awardwinning gem (netflix.com). READ Diary of an MP’s Wife: Inside and Outside Power. No holds barred reflections from Sasha Swire (£20, Little, Brown).

22 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK

Published in the November/December 2020 edition of C&TH

PHOTO: BENITA WRIGHT

TA L K I N G P O I N T S

JAMES FOX

MARIE GUERLAIN ASMA KHAN

ARCHIE HEWLETT

EMMA RICE

CHRIS DUFF

THEO FENNELL FIONA BARRATT-CAMPBELL BARRY SMITH

Inspiring British stories The most exciting names in the British luxury industry – from food and fashion to health, engineering and beyond – join Country & Town House contributing editor, author and broadcaster Michael Hayman, to discuss what matters to British luxury leaders going forward in an ever-shifting landscape, post-Brexit and post-pandemic.

Available on all good platforms. countryandtownhouse.co.uk/podcasts @countryandtown

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EDELINE LEE

BEATIE WOLFE

LEENA NAIR

RICHARD CURTIS DEBORAH WILLIAMS SIR KEN OLISA

SHEREE ATCHESON CHARLEY BOORMAN JANE THYNNE

Remarkable times are…

An invitation to think differently. Change Makers, powered by Seven Hills, is a platform for innovative, positive ideas; its podcast brings together some of the world’s most interesting and inspiring individuals. In their conversations with host Michael Hayman, co-founder of Seven Hills, guests reflect on humanity, life lessons for the modern age, their passions and their thoughts on our world’s future. Available on all good platforms.

changemakers.works @ChangeMakers_SH

@changemakers_works

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