The Last Word: Before we start deploying AI in schools, perhaps we should learn more about what, exactly, we want to achieve by doing so. The most dangerous phrase in education today may be ‘AI-ready’. It sounds practical, modern, reassuring. It flatters governments, schools and universities into believing that readiness is a procurement issue: buy […]
Back to school was originally published on…
The Last Word: Not every graduate role will disappear. The issue is not the end of the junior career, but the need for firms to redesign it. For years, the first rung of professional life was built from work nobody especially loved. Junior bankers checked models. Consultants cleaned slides. Lawyers reviewed documents. Graduates wrote first […]
The first rung is vanishing was originally published…
The Last Word: Those working on Central and Eastern Europe’s narrative should stop selling what they do, and start selling what they see. Ask a room why the GBS sector in Central and Eastern Europe works and the answer usually arrives in a tidy order: cost, talent, geography, incentives. It is the pitch-deck catechism. Reasonable […]
Eastern Europe’s next export is operating intelligence was…
The Last Word: Work is no longer about location A few weeks ago, I listened to yet another office-versus-remote panel discussion and had the distinct feeling of watching executives argue over the seating plan on a ship whose engine had already been replaced. The familiar positions were all there. Some insisted that culture needs proximity. […]
Beyond office politics was originally published on…
The Last Word: When predictability becomes the product. In a hall full of global executives in Beijing last week, the pitch was not what it used to be. No talk of breakneck growth, no grand promises of limitless expansion. Instead, China’s premier, Li Qiang, offered something more subdued, and far more telling: stability. A ‘harbour […]
Harbour of certainty? was originally published on Emerging…
The Last Word: Companies must change to stay relevant. For years, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland and Romania have occupied a flattering place in Europe’s economic imagination: diligent improvers, able manufacturers, reliable beneficiaries of integration. It is not a false story—over the past two decades, these economies have narrowed the income gap with Western Europe through rising […]
A different…