‘Financial community must work to rebuild trust’
MEMBERS of Manchester’s professional and financial services community all played a part in the downturn and must now work to rebuild trust.
That’s the message from the new chairman of Pro.Manchester which represents the 240,000 people employed in the sector in Greater Manchester.
Delivering her maiden speech as chairman at the organisation’s AGM yesterday, Sue Webster, a programme director with BT, said: “It’s not about who to blame. We’re all complicit – we didn’t want the good times to stop. We can’t go back, we must build trust and find better ways of managing risk.”
Ms Webster, who replaces Ernst & Young partner Simon Oldfield, said innovation would be the key to a stronger economy, urging members not to “hunker down” and trade on past glories.
But she took a pessimistic view on the pace of recovery by predicting, “it will be extremely difficult for some years to come”.
Addressing the professional and financial sector’s future growth in Greater Manchester she said she wanted to see it developing in four key areas: raising its profile, increasing its market share, focusing on skills, and increasing its emphasis on innovation and enterprise.
She conceded that Pro.Manchester had not yet found a replacement for its former chief executive, Daniel Mouawad, who earlier this year took up a secondment with UK Trade and Investment in Mumbai.
Outgoing chairman Simon Oldfield said: “It’s taking longer than we thought it would take, partly because we’re absolutely determined to get the right person for that role and we won’t compromise.”
Mr Oldfield told members that he had become chairman at a “fairly sticky” time last year but Pro.Manchester was resilient. Paraphrasing the investor Warren Buffet Mr Oldfield said: “When the tide went out I was delighted to find Pro.Manchester had a substantial bathing costume on.”
Chris Baguley of Bridging Finance was elected vice chairman. Also elected to the board were Deborah Ascott-Jones of Brabners Chaffe Street; Robert Race of Brewin Dolphin; Stephen White of Citi Quilter; Elia Montorio of DLA Piper; Will Kintish of Kintish; Nicola Quayle of KPMG; Kirsty Shenton of MC2; and Steve Kuncewicz of Ralli.
