The second podcast of the Midtown Big Ideas Exchange programme for 2019/2020 considers how business leaders can embrace a responsible business agenda including building a diverse and inclusive culture. Tony Langham, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Lansons, the strategic reputation management consultancy, talks to the business and economics broadcaster Michael Wilson about the steps that Lansons are taking to become more ethical, diverse, sustainable and purpose-driven, and why this matters in terms of the success of a brand. Tony also discusses why he established Lansons in Midtown 30 years ago, and what continues to make the district so unique in terms of its business community and culture.
Tony Langham
Tony Langham co-founded Lansons in 1989 and has advised Governments, organisations and companies on their image and reputation for over 30 years. He is Chief Executive and retains an active consultancy role across a range of Lansons clients. His work is split between building reputations for organisations growing rapidly in the market and protecting the reputations of those with a leading position to maintain. His specialisms include launches, M&A, IPOs and crisis and issues management. He also advises Prime Ministers, Chairs and CEOs on personal reputation.
His first book, Reputation Management: The Future of Corporate Communications and Public Relations, was commissioned by the Public Relations & Communications Association (PRCA) and the International Communications Consultancy Organisation and was published by Emerald Publishing in 2018.
Tony has received three awards from the PRCA celebrating ‘lifetime achievement’ and contribution to the UK PR industry, in 2004, 2016 and 2019. He is regularly cited as one of the most influential PR people in the UK by industry publications.
Prior to co-founding Lansons he worked in financial communications with Dewe Rogerson in the 1980s. He began his career as a social, political and financial market researcher with MORI.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Lansons
Lansons is a strategic reputation management consultancy, acting as trusted advisers to organisations across the world. A partnership, with offices in London and New York, it offers expertise across customer, financial, policy, employee and media engagement to help build and protect reputations from the inside out, in ways that are authentic and purposeful.
Lansons is made up of 64% women and 36% men; a split that is reflected in both the management team and ownership structure. Lansons does not have a gender pay gap.
Lansons has appeared in the top 50 ‘Best Places to Work’ (Great Places to Work Institute) for 14 years running and has been named Workplace Champion and Ethical Champion by the industry body, the PRCA.
Michael Wilson
Michael is a journalist, broadcaster, and British TV’s longest-serving Business and Economics Editor. He has anchored Sky’s coverage of major business and financial news – giving quick, accurate on the spot analysis from budgets to the crises of booms and busts. Michael joined Sky Television at its inception in 1989. In 1992, he left to present GMTV’s early morning news and business hour.
He then returned to Sky as Business and Economics Editor in 1995, and launched Sky Business Report, the news channel’s then daily evening money programme. He has also written for national newspapers and his reports have been taken and watched worldwide.
The Midtown Big Ideas Exchange
BEE Midtown is the Business Improvement District (BID) for Holborn, Clerkenwell, Bloomsbury, Farringdon and St Giles – London’s Midtown. Its annual Big Ideas Exchange is a dynamic programme of debates, workshops, content and thought leadership about the future of work. The programme for 2019/2020 is grounded in a selection of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) – these are a set of targets agreed by the UN in 2015.
BEE Midtown has identified four SDGs where it believes Midtown businesses can have the biggest impact – Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10); Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11); Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12); and Partnerships For The Goals (SDG 17).
This podcast covers some of the issues and themes that are embedded within SDG 10.
More information can be found at www.bee-midtown.com/mbie.
This podcast is linked to SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities.
Among the themes covered in this discussion:
> How Lansons came to be set up in 1989 and why it is located in Midtown
> Reducing inequality in the workplace
> Building a diverse and inclusive business
> Being carbon-neutral
> Reputation management
> Purpose-driven and ethical businesses