Sponsored by
He's our man in Moscow
Having recently stepped down as president of Leeds Chamber of Commerce, former Leeds Co-Op chief executive Alan Gill is about to embark on a two-year adventure which will take him away from Leeds to the centre of Moscow where his wife is now based. You might describe it as "To Russia, with love", as Business Editor NIGEL SCOTT discovered
FROM Leeds to Moscow just as the Russian winter is about to bare its teeth doesn't sound like the most sensible of moves.
Alan Gill knows where to point the finger.
"My wife is the cause of this," he says.
Unlike her high-profile Leeds business leader husband, Mrs Gill has been building a hugely successful career of her own away from the public spotlight.
Her 20-odd years with Asda, working in employer relations, became an international brief when the Leeds-based supermarket group was taken over by US giant Wal-Mart.
Since then she's had spells in Canada, Mexico and Germany but usually for just a few weeks. Longer assignments were turned down because her husband's base was Leeds.
Then things changed.
"When I said I was going to retire from full-time employment, she came up with the idea that 'if I get offered an assignment somewhere around the world, I might take it'.
"We agreed that if something was offered, and she wanted to do it, we would go together. Wal-Mart is just opening up in Russia and she has accepted a two-year assignment as personnel director for Wal-Mart in Russia.
"We've got an apartment in Moscow. She's out there already and I'm joining her in late November."
Alan says he needs to learn the language but, luckily, he adds, Wal-Mart will pay for one-to-one tuition for both of them.
"I was talking to a Russian girl out there," he continues, "and asking about the winter and how bad is it, and I could have been talking to someone in Beeston because she said 'Oh, we don't get the winters out here like we used to'.
"I said 'God, you sound like us' – but I think what she meant was it was only minus 15 rather than minus 20."
When he arrives in the Russian capital, Alan will in effect be a househusband but he'll be looking for opportunities to get involved in the local business scene.
"People have said to me 'why don't you do this and why don't you do that?' The Co-op has contacts out there and my wife was telling me she'd been to a function and had been introduced to the President of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce. There's a number of things I probably could get involved in. We'll see."
As excited as he is by his sudden life change, he admits there is sadness at temporarily leaving behind the city in which he has been a key player for many years.
"I've got very mixed feelings. I'm really looking forward to it because it is an exciting country and I'm sure the culture will be fantastic.
"But, it's like, what will you do on that Monday morning when you wake up and you've no Leeds Initiative and no Chamber of Commerce and no Leeds College?
"I'll miss the people. I know it's a clich but I've got my same e-mail address and same mobile phone number so I will keep in touch."
What sort of country does he feel he's leaving behind?
"It is worrying. Those of us of a certain age – I'm 60 this year – say 'yeah, we've seen it all before and what goes around comes around and we all knew we were being daft being so loose with our lending'.
Global
"What's different is that it's so global. Whatever we do, we can't isolate ourselves from what's going on elsewhere. That's the problem. I still believe it's going to come back. It has to come back.
"You can't envisage life with it not coming back. I'm sure it will. It's confidence, at the end of the day, it's not the fundamentals.
"Our economy is generally OK but, in the meantime, and turning to the real economy, it is hurting even those firms that are successful and have order books and all the rest of it.
"I think the Government, the politicians, were right to give all their energy to focus on making sure the banks were helped. But the downside is all of that focus on that side has meant that they haven't really sold the benefits to the ordinary man and woman on the street.
"I think they are going 'why are we bailing out banks and why are you spending my money on bailing out the banks?'
"Well, the fact is we're bailing out the banks to save your job, Mr and Mrs Smith. And to stop you getting the boot and to stop prices getting even worse and the rest of it. That's why we're doing it. I hope the politicians will get that message across."
I suggest that despite all the doom and gloom there are still plenty of businesses locally and nationally that are doing well.
Alan agrees.
"Absolutely. In my own sector, in retail, Asda is producing some great figures. Aldi and Lidl are doing great. Sainsbury's, too.
"There are success stories in manufacturing and the media. We know that house construction and purchases, and furniture – things related to housing – are in trouble. But public sector construction is still strong.
"We've got to be careful. One or two people say we can talk ourselves into a recession and I think there's some truth in that.
"Most of the businesses I am talking to say 'we are not panicking, we are not laying people off. What we're doing is just battening down the hatches and waiting for it to come good again'.
"In a year, or two years, it will turn round. I'm not hearing anyone saying three years. I'm not hearing anyone saying six months. That's the sort of time frame people think we are going to have to go through."
So what about Leeds, specifically, and how about a progress report on the city?
An adopted son of the city – he was brought up in a small mining village in County Durham where his dad was a miner and his mum, ironically, worked for the Co-op – Alan Gill is certain that Leeds will weather the current economic storm.
"We know financial services is a big part of our economy. We've been very pleased about that, and proud about that, and pushed it. I don't subscribe to the 'oh my God, we made a mistake because it's financial services that has been hit'. I don't subscribe to that at all.
"We didn't make a mistake. It was the right thing. It's still the right thing.
"It's still a sector that we're strong in and need to continue to be strong in. Our strategy is to be the strongest outside of London. Those reasons are still there. London is going to overheat, is overheating, will continue to overheat, and the industry needs that valve of somewhere like Leeds.
"Although it's a major part in the success of Leeds, it's the diversity of the economy that is our strength – better than the Newcastles, the Manchesters and the Birminghams, our competitor cities if you like. We have this broad spread.
"It's like my old business, the Co-op. Travel was down but food was up; food was down but funerals was up; funerals was down but optical was up. You didn't have all your eggs in one basket.
"It is tough but, like our own personal companies, the city as a whole needs to not talk ourselves down; realise that some things are not going to go ahead. At least, they're going to be put on hold. Lumiere is the one that everybody quotes.
"The city's businesses go 'well, yeah, we were going too bloomin' fast and too furious anyway'. Whilst we wanted a softer landing, this is the opportunity to draw breath and say 'hang on a minute, are we going a bit too fast, and too risky and too gung ho', and this will be good for us."
The much-trumpeted Arena development, says Alan, will still go ahead.
"That's still definitely going to happen. There's no reason to believe it will be affected by this. The money is earmarked.
"I'm sure by the time I get back from Moscow, the arena, if not open, will be well on its way coming out of the ground. And that's another great thing for us, not only in terms of the use of it but the fact that we've got one."
He says that in Manchester, for example, a lot of that city's population have probably never set foot inside its arena – but they are proud they have got it.
"It does great for the city and it sells the city and attracts people to it."
Accolades
The Chamber's view remains that the Leeds Arena should be built as close as possible to the city centre and its members are awaiting with interest the council's decision on where exactly it will sit within the city landscape. "We wait with close inspection, if you like, or anticipation over where it's going to go."
He says the argument for having it in the city centre is just as relevant now as it was when the consultants engaged by the council came up with the view that it should be central.
And to take the point further, using the recently reopened city museum as an example, he says it is important for the future growth of the city that it gets its cultural offering right.
"I think the museum's great and I think it's going to bring us lots of accolades. The great and good have been to look at it. I'm not so sure the general public has yet engaged with it but I think they will and I think it's everything it's cracked up to be.
"We've got this whole culture thing that we don't make enough of. And I think we should. We need to make more of it.
"The business community needs to take it up more, as well, I think. People coming to live and work here, and companies looking to relocate here – of course it is about transport and it's about skills but it's also about amenities and culture.
"We need to promote that more."
The city, he says, has slipped behind in the retail stakes after previously forging ahead with the likes of the Victoria Quarter and Harvey Nichols and the pedestrianisation of Briggate.
"We were conscious that we had taken a lead but you only have the lead for so long. People don't lie down, do they?
"What we are doing now in terms of the Trinity Quarter and in terms of Eastgate will leapfrog us back up and that's great. By the time I come back from Moscow, again hopefully most of that will be well on its way and it will shoot us back up – and we need to make sure we stay there.
"But what I would say, and I have said, to colleagues is that in terms of the Arena and those schemes, they are yesterday.
"What my colleagues, the President of the Chamber, the leader of the council, and I know they are doing this, it's like what are we doing in 2012, 2013, 2014. Whatever's going to happen in 2010, we've already done. We have to keep on top of it.
"Do we want the Commonwealth Games? Do we want a city park? Do we want a Tate Gallery?
"These things take years, as we know. How long have we been talking about the Arena? These things take a long time."
Talking of the future, we come to a subject that is clearly dear to his heart: learning and skills, and preparing today's young people for the challenges of tomorrow. A strong workforce to help maintain a strong city.
"I'm really encouraged, actually," he says, of the strategies that have been put in place in Leeds, "that the business community has engaged with the skills agenda. I'm proud that I've played some part in that in terms of being a member of the Skills Board.
Prosper
"Businesses have long complained that the Government and the local authority and the colleges and the schools are not doing enough, are not producing the right quality young folks.
"What's encouraged me over the last four or five years is businesses saying 'we're going to do something about it. We're going to try and get involved in schools more', to try and up the ante, to try and get involved in further education.
"I'm so proud of the employers that have stepped forward. It's more than enlightened self-interest. It is this desire to see the city prosper and a desire for all parts of the city to prosper.
"My hobby horse has been that it's all right bringing in people from Harrogate and Knaresborough, with all due respect to Harrogate and Knaresborough, or Wakefield to work in the city centre, but we've got thousands of city centre residents who are not getting jobs because they haven't got the skills. You can't blame the employers. We have got to get those people upskilled.
"I'm sure there are people saying the economy's down, we've got to stop training people, but Leeds is a bit more mature than that and a lot of our industry is added value industry and we do recognise that we have to continue to train and upskill if we want to compete."
With views like these, and a passion to see them delivered, it's clear that Leeds may well miss Alan as much as he misses the city. But he'll be back in two years when he'll most probably be itching to get reinvolved with his adopted city's great 21st-century journey.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 0 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
