Your family blood may be thicker than water but is it good for business? As Icarus discovered to his cost when he dismissed his father's advice, your family are often your best critics and your closest ally in business.
Entrepreneurs and business leaders should realise that the popularised notion that "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is fundamentally flawed. As a young and inexperienced, yet very hungry, start-up entrepreneur, I took every opportunity to dine with wise old business owls.
Britain's authority as a force in international business risks being blighted by narrow-mindedness and linguistic ignorance. This week, the BBC reported at a YouGov poll found that only twenty-five per cent of UK residents claim that they can hold a conversation in any of the top ten languages listed by the British Council, and more than half of upper-secondary school students don't study a foreign language.
I would like to say a big "Thank you" to Powerland, China's premier handbag manufacturer, for sponsoring the Women in the City and Livery float during Saturday's Lord Mayor's parade. All 50 of us involved in the float were sporting the handbags, specially flown over from China for the event.
Successful entrepreneurs don't yield when confronted with a challenge, even one that seriously threatens their company's very existence. Almost every business leader will at some point confront such a challenge; capital costs, regulations, scale economics, to name but a few examples.
Young entrepreneurs and business students are constantly drilled about how they must "Find that gap in the market". From there, they'd like have us believe, the business practically builds itself. I urge all budding business professionals to try a more backwards approach.
I'll start off with one of the simplest yet most important (and often neglected!) points to succeeding as an entrepreneur in the UK's business wilderness. As a migrant entrepreneur, you have a fantastic leverage in utilising both your home-nation's heritage and the opportunities offered by your new host country.
Saturday November 9th is the Honourable Lord Mayor's parade in the City of London, where Fiona Woolf of CMS Cameron McKenna will become only the second woman in the institution's 800-year history to don the ceremonial ermine and tricorn.
The origins and traditions of the City of London certainly still ring true today. From its founding under the Romans as a trading post between the island and the rest of the Roman Empire, to its status today as one of the world's leading financial hubs, the City of London has always had a global scope when it comes to outward and inward investment.
