Editor’s introduction

Communications crunch – restoring trust in banks;
coping with prolonged uncertainty; reflecting on
change. Seven experts give their views.

Communicating, and doing so convincingly, has been a huge challenge for company executives, politicians, regulators and investors over the last 12 months. The speed and brutality of the financial and economic meltdown has been unprecedented. Globalization and digital media have intensified the threat to reputations in ways unimagined in earlier crises. Political and general reporters have joined business and economic specialists to tell the story from new and unexpected angles.

• So what lessons have been learned and how can they be usefully applied in the months and years to come?
• How can banks restore trust?
• How can companies cope with prolonged uncertainty?
• Has the crash changed anything fundamental about the way to communicate?
• And how did those in the communication “hot seat” cope with crisis a generation ago?

We invited a distinguished group of bankers, investors, communications experts and media specialists to consider these questions.

01: Stephen Green – Group Chairman, HSBC

02: Sir Win Bischoff – Formerly Citigroup

03: Anthony Bolton – Fidelity International

04: Glenn Greenberg and Joshua Slocum – Chieftan Capital Management

05: David Faber – CNBC

06: John Duncan – Formerly National Westminster Bank