‘A week’s a long time in politics’ or is it?  That particular quote is attributed to Harold Wilson and although, when asked just after his retirement as Prime Minister in 1977, he could not pinpoint exactly when he first used the words it is widely accepted that it was at a lobby briefing for journalists at the time of the sterling crisis in 1964.

Ironically it was Wilson with a tiny majority in the mid–1970s who oversaw the referendum which first endorsed British membership of the European Community.  And it’s this issue along with the formation of an Irish government or lack thereof that I wrote about in this column over a month ago which has awakened us all to the fact that politics can sometimes be just as dilatory as it can be expeditious. The only thing that has caught the Irish media and the Irish public unawares over the last 50 days or so has been the glacial nature of the political class’ ability or inability to form a viable government. All the while the country remains in a state of limbo.  

As for the business sector as a whole it’s hard to comment on it without talking about Brexit, such is its impact.  It continues to be dominated by the potential impact of the UK’s withdrawal from Europe and for good reason.  Not that this is any consolation to the public with little let–up in the debate which is becoming increasingly monotonous by the day with many of the same vessels making the same noises.  Where politics never stands still, for any length of time and where we must sit up and take notice, is within the fluid impact it has on the business sector and the economy.  In this sphere a week truly is a long time.  Familiarity breeds contempt and in the business arena, so does uncertainty.  There isn’t many things the business community dislike more than uncertainty.  The current uncertainty is of course being fueled by concerns of the UK leaving the European Union which the IMF believe has been instrumental in sterling depreciating by 7%, which may be good news for exporters but a weak pound does not auger well for a strong UK economy.  The IMF has also cut its growth forecast for 2016 to 1.9%, compared with its January estimate of 2.2%.  What this tells us is that the business sector not only dislikes the idea of Brexit but the very debate around it.  Boris and company however are more concerned about having a pop at the US President over his anti–Brexit stance and what they see as his hypocrisy over sovereignty.  The longer this debate goes on the more the Pro Brexit lobby seem destined to pull on the much maligned sovereignty strings.

How can the business sector commit to investment, research and development, innovation, employment growth and the support of economic prosperity when they don’t know what environment or what global markets or conditions they will be operating in post referendum?  The business sector has made its views on this issue well and truly heard and in the meantime it’ll hold its breath and much of its investment.

But no matter what the economic environment or market the good news is that there are business leaders of real insight and vision with indelible timing and the unstinting commitment to impact real change.

These leaders stand apart because they succeed, making real change in spite of global economic uncertainty and issues that currently dog the corporate environment such as energy volatility, security and privacy concerns.  Forbes magazine recently published 30 innovators who make up its list of so called ‘Global Game Changers’.

While the list has strong geographical and cross industry representation, it’s somewhat unfortunate that a pre–requisite is that the global leaders’ businesses must have a market value of more than $1billion.  Yes, it’s a strong measure of success but the drive for global commercial growth doesn’t always sit comfortably with and can often stifle creativity and innovation, characteristics which can have a fundamental influence and impact upon business development and evolution.   Steve Jobs was not driven by commercial success but by product innovation, creativity and perfection but he achieved the success nonetheless.  Jorge Paulo Lemann, Cofounder of 3G Capital, who has the backing of Warren Buffet, is on Forbes list as much as anything for transforming mature brands into significant profit centres through razor sharp cost cutting and by ‘forcing managers to justify every single number on their budgets, every single year’.  Good business, yes, global commercial success, yes, global game changer, hardly.  

Of course the digital world is represented in spades with more than a healthy representation from the health / pharmaceutical sector. Notable inclusions are Mark Zuckerberg and more pertinently his refusal to rest on his Facebook laurels as well as Illumina’s Jay Flately bringing the potential for real societal as well as business change by cutting the cost of DNA sequencing and the opportunity of having individualised medicine much closer. Now that would be a global game changer.

A stand out on this list for me is still, Jeff Bezos, CEO and Founder of Amazon.  It is an organisation and a CEO that has had its critics regarding its management style but in terms of business evolution, ingenuity, creativity and flexibility to reach new markets and grow market share, it continues to deliver.  In the process it is changing how we shop and is continuously evolving the retail environment.  What was books became retail, soon to be drones and grocery delivery. The company and its business leader looks at the market, sees the direction of travel, adapts the business model and the public follows suit…..oh and has some $110 billion of sales.  And Bezos’ mantra, “We are comfortable planting seeds and waiting for them to grow into trees”…….global game changing seeds.