Andrew Bailey’s Post

Recruiting for a new role in my team, a Collateral Specialist. Fantastic opportunity here to join a rapidly growing business!

The more I learn about Mike Lynch the British tech entrepreneur, the more I am inspired by his life story. The shocking and tragic events of this week were compounded by multiple deaths. Jonathan Bloomer was on board the Bayesian yacht and sadly perished along with his wife. I spoke with Jonathan only two weeks back. He was the CEO of Prudential plc when I joined as a graduate, more recently we crossed paths in his capacity as Chairman of Hiscox Both Mike and Jonathan, shared a fierce intellect and an astute business acumen. Mike attended the same school as close friends of mine, local to where I grew up. I was asked by Simon French, Katie Prescott and The Times to calculate the odds of Mike Lynch passing away within days of Stephen Chamberlain, his former colleague and co-defendant in the the trial that followed the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett Packard. Both had only recently been acquitted of all charges against them. The odds of the events leading to their demise occurring in such close proximity are one in 250 million. My maths squiggles are below. I only recently discovered Mike’s PhD was based around the statistical theory of Thomas Bayes - I dabbled in this sort of maths myself in my younger days. Mike used it to develop the tech behind Autonomy and other ventures which are essentially the building blocks for machine learning, Chat GPT, large language models and general AI. May God bless their souls. Our thoughts are with their families and friends.

We all like to think career success is based on merit. While talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. Research in the UK shows people from higher socio-economic backgrounds are more than twice as likely to be found in senior roles compared with those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Some people start the game 3-0 ahead, making the journey of a professional career much harder for others. It’s not just about education or skills but understanding the unwritten workplace rules. How can you play the game, when no one has taught you the rules?   I was the first in my family to go to university and my career path has gone from growing up on council estates to a senior career in both public and private sectors. I know how hard the journey is. That’s why I’m proud to be EY’s Social Mobility Champion in the UK and seeing social mobility as a key part of our new EY global strategy speaks volumes about our organisation.   Over the years, I’ve spoken a lot about social mobility, but very little about me. Sharing my story with 400,000 EY colleagues and on LinkedIn feels rather daunting, but an honour to do so. It is important for our colleagues and clients to understand that if we want economic growth, diversity of thought and better organizations, then people shouldn’t be defined by where they come from, but by who they have the potential to be.   Join me in the conversation to elevate #SocialMobility.    ey.com/socialmobility   #BetterWorkingWorld #Inclusion Karyn Twaronite Marjana E. Sandra Ool Vicky Salas Asemahle Mngambi Josh Novak Flavio Trindade

Time was the theme of #Nudgestock2024 and I’m really glad I took the time to attend in person this year. I’ve dipped into the livestreams over the years, but I appreciated the time to soak in and reflect as well as take the opportunity to meet so many like-minded individuals. Even found myself sitting beside both #OliverBurkeman (who cheerily reminded us we are going to die(!) in ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ and anyone in there 40s/50s has <2,000 weeks left(!!), but I prefer the more positive slant of there’s no time like the present to really live) and #JonathanHaidt (who was evangelical about the time spent in play and socialising in real life, away from technology, for us and for our children). #RorySutherland is always good value and he highlighted the diminishing returns of speed and that the slower, scenic route can often not only be cheaper but more enjoyable and fulfilling. #SatchidandaPanda talked about the power of circadian rhythms and looking forward to following up my brief conversation with #DavidMeinhart on an article I co-authored on the impact on Shift Workers (Clin. Transl. Neurosci. 2023, 7(4), 33; https://lnkd.in/esCwkFnj) The positive messages from #MichaelNorton reframing from habits (the what) to rituals (the how), to animate and give us more energy; and from #NualaWalsh to take the time to ‘Tune In’ to what really matters (also looking forward to following up on our shared experiences of Behavioural Science, as well as Trinity College Dublin & PA Consulting, back in Dublin) Great to celebrate the real life examples of Behavioural Science in action from #JordanBuck, #KirstenMcPerson & #FionaGordon; #NavaAshraf’s examples of how commitment devices can help to counteract the hyperbolic discounting draw of now v future and #MikeHughes’ (#ArcticMonkeys) demonstration of benefit to creativity of constraining time - through collectively writing a song about the day’s key messages in just 10 minutes. And whilst I haven’t suffered a similar scale life crisis as #EmmaHarris (cardiac arrest) a sprained ankle was enough of a catalyst to realise I couldn’t pack in all of the multitude of things & people I had hoped to during my few days in London this time - that maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, as instead it allowed me take the time reflect and appreciate more all of the above. Also have my reading list sorted!