Leadership in a crisis - part of the Dean's Series: Business As Unusual

Managing through a crisis requires accelerated leadership: thinking fast about the present, but fast about the future too. How do leaders balance these competing demands? How far must the immediate take precedence over the long term? And what are the best questions to ask beyond: how do we survive this? Margaret Heffernan hosts this panel event and is joined by Sarah Gillard, Mission Director, Strategy at John Lewis Partnership, Wilf Blackburn, Regional CEO, Insurance Growth Markets, Prudential Corporation Asia and Daniel Shellard and Ian McCaig co-founders of Fiit.

The panel will be exploring the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for U.K. retail, for global corporations and for entrepreneurial businesses. Does anyone have an advantage?

Participant profiles

Margaret Heffernan produced BBC radio and television programmes for 13 years. Since then, she has run 5 businesses in the US and UK. She is the author of 6 books, including Wilful Blindness and UNCHARTED: How to map the future together.

Sarah Gillard has worked across trading, commercial and people strategy. In 2020, she became one of the first Mission Directors - leading teams to explore opportunities consonant with the company’s founding principles - to find a better way of doing business.

Wilf Blackburn is responsible for steering 16 markets across Asia and Africa towards greater growth. Prior to this, Wilf was the CEO of Prudential Assurance Company Singapore, a position he held for four years. He has an MBA from the University of Bath.

Daniel Shellard and Ian McCaig both started their careers at Google before going on to start one of the most funded European SaaS business Qubit. In 2016 they left to follow their passion for fitness, setting up Fiit, the number one rated digital fitness experience.