Coffee With Roz Morris
1. How do you think the digital revolution will change the way your business works?
Following a career as a journalist and broadcaster, I run a business specialising in communications in business - media training, presentation training and public relations. These are all contact sports, and I think there will always need to be contact between real people to improve their performance in practical ways.
However, we are already providing more training for clients abroad via Skype and other forms of video conferencing. Plus the demands of being able to use Facebook Live like a professional broadcaster are also growing.
So yes the digital revolution will bring changes in skills required for businesspeople to use the media – both in its traditional and digital forms. Social media and digital communications in general have already changed all concepts of privacy and built up the need for creating personalities and exposing the lives of celebrities as drivers of sales. So I think we are deep into the cult of human personalities and a long way from Max Headroom and AI interviewers interviewing AI interviewees.
2. Brexit will have a big impact on jobs in the City - how do you lead with confidence when there are so many unanswered questions?
I believe Brexit will change the landscape of where the City sits in the global financial world to some extent, but, as we have already seen, the City of London has a very strong place as a global financial centre and evidence is growing that it will maintain that. I am also confident that, whatever the shape of Brexit, the City will invent new ways of making a lot of money. It always does.
3. What do you believe your role is as an influential female in the City in helping other women within the work environment?
As I am now in my sixties, I feel very strongly that we are now finally at a point of historic change where women are revealing the extent of sexual harassment and are determined to change the culture permanently. We all thought we were doing our bit on this decades ago but it now seems that, despite lots of real practical progress in defeating sexism, like being taxed in our own right even when married, gaining access to jobs previously closed to us, and no longer getting letters addressed to Dear Sir etc.. sexual harassment has just gone on and on. So, we must make sure that women are ready now always to tell men to back off and to own and use the power now being offered to them of being able to name and shame.
4. What would most of your colleagues be surprised to know about you?
I’ve been a vegetarian for forty years and I think meat eaters now have a duty to cut back on animal protein and therefore cut down the huge methane emissions from cows and pigs which are adding to global warming. The reckless consumption of intelligent animals is causing huge problems in terms of global warming, the cutting down of rainforests, cruelty to animals and the health links between stomach cancer and eating large amounts of red meat. So the sooner people give up or cut down on eating what I call primitive protein the better it will be for all of us.
5. What would be your favourite place to have a coffee in London and with who?
My favourite place to have a coffee is at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall. It’s great for informal business meetings as there’s always lots of positive energy and an optimistic buzz of business being created all around you. I always find it an inspiring place to be.
I’d love to have a coffee there with James Dyson and hear his views on his new university for engineers, his new electric car, and on the huge opportunities for international trade after Brexit. As he’s a billionaire expert on global trade, I think, in our current circumstances, we should all be listening to him.
Roz Morris is Managing Director of TV News London Ltd and was Vice President of CWN from 2008-2010.