With the world reeling from the human and economic costs of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, “It may seem as though a broader purpose is now a luxury for many firms, who are currently focused partly or entirely on survival,” says CISI CEO Simon Culhane, Chartered FCSI. However, he says, “those firms with an established broader purpose aimed at benefiting all stakeholders will often be better placed to weather shocks and, crucially, to share value throughout the supply chain.”
Purpose – the ‘why’ of a firm – “sits at the heart of its business model, strategy and culture,” says the UK regulator, the FCA, in its March 2020 discussion paper Transforming culture in financial services: driving purposeful cultures. The paper presents the outcomes from a series of round tables instigated by the FCA between June and October 2019, two streams of which were run by the CISI, with Simon chairing the retail investment working group, and CISI chair, Michael Cole-Fontayn MCSI, chairing the wholesale financial markets working group. This feeds into our special report on pages 19 to 27, which looks at the global business case for purpose.
At a suitably social distance (we called South Africa from the UK), we had the pleasure of chatting to Gerhardt Meyer CFP®, chair of the Board of Directors of the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), about his role at the FPSB and the unique perspective he brings to it from his legal background. Read his profile interview on pages 28 to 31.
Other highlights include an ethical dilemma about the reputational impact of individual actions on a firm (pp.46–47); a look at the priorities of the new European Commission (pp.32–35); and an assessment of the reasons for the ever-rising house prices in the UK, especially London, and what this means for clients (pp.60–63).
Read the June 2020 edition of The Review