The Bard

I was very fortunate to have the wonderful Jim Hytner as my boss from 2013 to 2017. If you are a direct report of Jim’s, you have to have a nickname, and after a couple of false starts he picked up on mine and my wife’s passion for Shakespeare and from that point onwards I became ‘The Bard’.

Shakespeare plays a major role in my family’s life. My wife is doing a PhD in Shakespearean studies, my eldest daughter is a theatrical stage manager and has worked on several Shakespeare productions and we are Silver Patrons of the Royal Shakespeare Company. We recently moved to Warwickshire to be closer to Stratford-upon-Avon.

One of the fantastic things about Shakespeare is his ability to capture meaning in an incredibly wide range of subjects. Having achieved my nickname, I decided every new business pitch we worked on should have a Shakespeare quote as a good luck sign off for the team and I never had to look far to find one.

I usually like to sign off with ‘Let’s start the conversation’, and to quote the real Bard: “Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.”

I couldn’t agree more.