Intelligence Squared

Latest Episodes:

No Bullsh*t Leadership, with Roula Khalaf May 20, 2022

Show notes

Chris Hirst, Global CEO of advertising group Havas Creative, cuts through the bullshit and gets to the heart of modern leadership in this straight-talking podcast brought to you by Intelligence Squared.

In this episode, Christ Hirst speaks to Roula Khalaf, the Editor of the Financial Times. In January 2020, Khalaf became the first female editor in the Financial Times’ 134-year history. Her path to the top of the FT came through her work as a foreign correspondent. Born in Lebanon, she served as the FT’s Foreign Editor, reporting from Iraq, Iran and Syria, and leading the FT’s coverage of the Arab Spring. She joined the FT in 1995 as North Africa correspondent after a stint as a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York, and she now manages 600 journalists across the globe as editor of one of the world’s most respected and recognisable publications.

If you enjoyed this podcast please let us know what you think by rating and reviewing No Bullsh*t Leadership on Apple Podcasts. For updates on the series follow @intelligence2 and @chrishirst on Twitter.

Producer & Editor: Bella Soames;

Technical Support: Mark Roberts.

Chris Hirst is author of the award-winning book No Bulls*ht Leadership: Why the World Needs More Everyday Leaders and Why That Leader Is You.

Podnotes:

00:00 Intro
01:17 Becoming editor during the pandemic
04:59 Increased trust in the media
07:21 Your childhood and growing up in Beirut
10:52 Your take on Carlos Ghosn
12:26 Your first job at Forbes and meeting Jordan Belfort
14:40 Early career as a foreign correspondent
16:24 Your leadership style
17:12 Learning about a new style of management during the pandemic
20:00 What you can and can’t achieve with hybrid working systems
21:28 Your experience as the first female editor of the Financial Times
22:16 Why a diversity of views makes for better journalism
23:52 The difference between leadership near the top of an organisation, and once you become the leader of an organisation
27:45 The FT’s role in highlighting the topics that should be relevant to their readers
30:52 What do you think of Elon Musk buying Twitter?
32:32 What role has failure played in your career?
34:13 A piece advice for somebody taking on a new, big leadership position
35:20 What next?

Connect with Chris Hirst on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishirst/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrishirst and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrishirst_leadership/

Watch exclusive content and original videos from Chris Hirst on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNC4qT90ArKOuKV8B0LWTWA

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The Afghan Women Writing for Freedom, with Marie Bamyani, Zarghuna Kargar and Lucy Hannah May 18, 2022

Show notes

Afghan women’s voices are at increasing risk of being silenced and as more of their rights slip away, so do their stories. In this episode we hear from three women from the UNTOLD writers programme, who are the co-creators of My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, a new anthology of Afghan women's fiction. Lucy Hannah is founder of UNTOLD, Zarghuna Kargaar is a journalist, translator and author of Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan, and Marie Bamyani is a contributing author featured in My Pen is the Wing of a Bird. Hosting the discussion is Halima Kazem, Afghanistan Oral Histories Project Manager at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz.

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How to Avert the Climate Catastrophe and a Financial Meltdown, with Eugene Linden May 16, 2022

Show notes

Author and environmental journalist Eugene Linden's new book, Fire and Flood: A People’s History of Climate Change from 1979 to the Present, lays out how successive US governments managed to delay action on climate change when they should have been raising the alarm. It also looks at why the climate emergency will have a big impact on the global economy and why China and India, which could have taken a lead on renewables, double downed on coal to fuel their industrialisation in the 1990s. Our host for the podcast is the economist and broadcaster Linda Yueh.

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Is it Time to Abandon the Five-Day Work Week? May 15, 2022

Show notes

Is it time to abandon the five-day work week? Or is the "five-days on, two days off" cadence of work and rest more important than ever?

This event was organised in partnership with Slack, your digital HQ. Slack connects your teams, tools, customers and partners in a digital place that’s fast, flexible and inclusive for a work-from-anywhere world. From FTSE 100 companies to corner shops, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems and drive their business forwards.

If you would like to find out more about how Slack are supporting their clients then visit https://www.slack.com/digitalhq for a host of valuable resources!

Speakers: Bruce Daisley, Elizabeth Uviebinené, Karl Nicholson and Nick Srnicek

Host: Anne McElvoy

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How to Make Democracy Work for Everyone, with Yascha Mounk May 13, 2022

Show notes

During an era of identity politics, culture wars and increasing awareness of the structural biases that contribute to global inequality, it’s easy to become pessimistic about the possibility of making diverse democracies work. Yascha Mounk is a writer and political scientist whose recent book, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, offers analysis of how our fractured societies can acknowledge the injustices of the past, while moving forward towards conciliation and cooperation. Hosting the discussion is BBC journalist and broadcaster Ritula Shah.

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The Futureverse: The World Will Be a Better Place in 5, 50 and 500 Years May 11, 2022

Show notes

We live in a time of greater uncertainty than ever before in human history. We are poised between the twin precipices of climate change and rapidly accelerating technological development. How we manage them will determine whether our future is one where humans will thrive, falter or something in between. Welcome to the Futureverse – brought to you by Intelligence Squared and Y TREE – a space to explore the ideas that will shape our future.

In this episode, three leading thinkers come together to debate the motion, ‘Will The World Be A Better Place in 5, 50 and 500 Years?’ The sculptor Sir Antony Gormley champions the role of art in public spaces in a future society that puts community and care at its centre. Climate change activist Clover Hogan argues that the next ten years will be crucial for determining the next 50. Tech entrepreneur and former chief business officer at Google X, Mo Gawdat considers how we can imbue AI with values aligned to those of humanity. Expertly hosted by broadcaster Jon Sopel, this is a conversation that is guaranteed to change the way you think about the future.

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Ukrainians on the War in Ukraine, with Kira Rudyk, Michael Bociurkiw and Olha Poliukhovych May 09, 2022

Show notes

Is the West doing enough to help Ukraine? What kind of endgame should Ukraine be seeking – all-out victory over Russia or a negotiated settlement that will allow both sides to claim they have won? To help answer some of these questions, we invited three prominent Ukrainian voices to get the view from the country. Kira Rudik is the MP who went viral on Instagram when she posted a photo of herself wielding a Kalashnikov and urging her fellow citizens to take up arms against the Russian invaders; Michael Bociurkiw, geopolitical analyst and humanitarian; and Olha Poliukhovych, a cultural historian and academic based in Kyiv. This discussion is hosted by broadcaster and academic Philippa Thomas.

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The Sunday Debate: Abolish Billionaires May 08, 2022

Show notes

Reportedly the planet's richest person, multibillionaire Elon Musk is currently seeking to buy the World's online public square, Twitter. Should billionaires be able to buy so much influence? For this week's Sunday Debate we revisit a discussion from 2021 investigating just that, when we invited Professor Linsey McGoey of Essex University and Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute go head to head on whether society should tolerate the existence of billionaires. The debate was chaired by Economics Editor at BBC Newsnight, Ben Chu.

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Russia's Crackdown on Dissenting Voices May 06, 2022

Show notes

Since the war in Ukraine began, dwindling remaining hopes of maintaining even the outward appearance of a free democratic process in Russia have been all but eliminated by the Kremlin regime. Joining us on the programme to discuss the dangerous game of voicing dissent in Russia is activist and journalist Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of murdered Russian politician Boris Nemtsov, and Ben Noble, Associate Professor of Russian Politics at University College London and co-author of Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future? Hosting the discussion is Polina Ivanova, correspondent for the Financial Times covering Russia and Ukraine.

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What Next for France, Europe and the World? With Sophie Pedder and Ben Judah May 04, 2022

Show notes

For the second part of our analysis of one of the most tense elections in Europe of recent years, we hear from Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief at The Economist and author of Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation. Sophie is joined by foreign-policy writer and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Ben Judah, for a discussion about where France is headed next on both the World stage and closer to home. Hosting the discussion is Rosamund Urwin, Media Editor for the Sunday Times.

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