Tuesday/Wednesday

Tuesday: excellent time at LSE. Interesting people, intellectually stimulating conversation. Possibility of further research on data collected by the authors of the ICAEW report on activist investors. I'm very interested in the way in which active/activist investors define themselves and are defined by others. The word "activist" seems to have become tainted. And what impact do they have on the role of NEDs? But that will have to wait until the book is finished. Long chat with potential recruit.

Then went on to an audit committee event at ICAEW. A report has been produced jointly with BDO on audit committee reporting. The panel speakers were very good, especially Simon Laffin who has been a NED in some difficult situations - Northern Rock, Mitchell & Butler. Really good wide ranging discussion about the role of audit committees. It would be so interesting to revisit my PhD work to see how things have changed. (I noticed one of my original interviewees at the event - he was a young FD when I talked to him!) But that's another project that there's no time to do. Talked to potential interviewee for NEDs in public sector project - she will be my first port of call if I get the funding.

Arrived home very tired, looked the day's emails, most of which required my action and went to bed without doing anything about them.

Wednesday: started on emails at 6 am and cleared quite a few before heading to the campus. Several conversations, emails and phone calls to get recruitment and selection process moving in the hope of capturing a star. Further meetings with academic advisees - more cheerful Economics students whose only worry seems how to do referencing. Some interesting questions about how they would get feedback, they seem concerned about this.

Spent some time writing a reference for a former student who has applied to do a Masters at LSE. She is certainly ambitious and determined but her grades show that she is much better at exams (both numerical and discursive) than at anything which requires independent study. I was her academic advisor but didn't teach her although she visited me often for advice. Her English improved greatly. from a very weak start. I imagine there must be a lot of competition for places on her chosen courses, though. Completing references online is much easier than having to write letters as we used to.

The flood of emails seems never ending today - queries from a PhD student about completing a form, enquiries about applying for PhD study, notifications of changed meeting times and others of new meetings...
I was supposed to attend a Lord Mayor's Initiative meeting at the Mansion House tomorrow morning but I've sent my apologies as I shall need a clear day to go through the funding bid my colleagues have finally finished tweaking, to rejig my own bid and to get a move on with chapter 6. Have booked in to the nice hotel in Cambridge for two days at the start of December so that we can pull the book together and check any final references with the archive.

Meeting with PhD student after lunch. My co-supervisor had managed to read and comment on the 66 pages. We spent some time deconstructing a diagram that the student was clearly quite wedded to but which really didn't work and sent him away to reshape the literature review so that it supports his thesis properly. It is always a bit baffling for students when they discover that the research process is iterative rather than linear and that you need to keep revisiting what you wrote earlier.

More conversations about staff recruitment, funding bids and conference attendance and a quick trip to the library to collect an inter-library loan before I could leave. 8 am to 5 pm, lunch eaten at my desk while doing email - a long day but little progress on the big stuff.