When local boy Roman Geiser, Burson-Marsteller’s Swiss CEO, was catapulted into the stratosphere as Chief Operating Officer for EMEA, I just had to make the twenty-minute train ride to Zurich to interview him. Read on ›

There’s a timely call in today’sTimes for bank bosses to take the lead in restoring the reputations of their own institutions. Some have, but the message remains valuable. Read on ›

PR Week reports that the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) executive director of communications Lesley McLeod says the banks are getting a bum rap because of “inexperienced’” reporters who “fail to understand the crisis” or the “issues” it presents. What, and the BBA has to sit idly by? Why doesn’t it get stuck in? Read on ›

Barclay’s Chief Executive, John Varley, has been brilliant on Sky TV, the BBC Radio 4′s Today programme (and later this week on Panorama). Not a moment before time, we have a senior current banking figure not only talking (that’s very rare) but talking like a human being. Read on ›

Cleared snow from our road. Went to Basel. Got back and my wife said I had a letter from Peter Kurer, chairman of UBS. Whoopee. And yikes. Perhaps he’s suing me over my blog. Read on ›

Carly Fiorina, the former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, is spot-on in advising CEOs on how to restore trust in their role. Read on ›

Here is a good example of preemptive crisis management. It is a text-book example of how to manage a controversial issue by facing up to market realities. Read on ›

Last week I had coffee with a PR executive who helped manage Thursday’s UBS shareholders’ meeting in Lucerne. We met at Sprüngli on the Paradeplatz, the branch of the posh chocolate, cake and coffee shop favoured by wives of Zurich gnomes. He gave me an insider’s account of his work to restore trust in the Swiss icon. Read on ›

Yesterday Barclays Bank won the vote to endorse its billions of Arab fund-raising. Its board was attacked from all sides, even by those voting for the deal. Welcome to the world of recession business. Clients are going to have hard cases to sell. That’s our real job. It’ll be exhilarating. Read on ›

There’s an arctic snow storm outside. Even my Dachshund refuses to leave the house. So whilst we’re gratefully holed up in my Swiss home I’m going to write about those losing theirs in the UK. Naturally, I’m interested in the explanations given by the institutions which are turfing them out. Read on ›