Birmingham’s Power 50 – fat cats or future leaders?
Many of you will have seen the Power 50 supplement in last Friday’s Birmingham Post, but what does it actually mean?
If I’m honest I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. I thought the list was just a compilation of the most powerful men in the region, a sort of ego boost if anything. (I say men as many of these lists seem to be orientated that way)
However I found out that the Power 50 is much more than a fat cat list.
After attending the launch of the eagerly awaited list last Thursday, I discovered that the aim of the Power 50 is to identify the leaders of today and the young hopefuls of tomorrow who will take Birmingham to far greater heights.
As with any of these lists, you can expect to find numerous bankers, lawyers and architects fairly high up in the ranks, whilst those from the creative industries appear much lower down, if at all. However this year’s list encompassed a much broader spectrum of industries and experts including the CBSO’s new music director, Andris Nelsons and Helga Henry, general manager of Fierce Earth and chair of the board for Creative Republic.
Andris Nelsons, music director of CBSO
Helga Henry, general manager of Fierce Earth
The list did fall back on two areas though; a lack of women and younger professionals, which is ironic as the Power 50 is actually run by the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Future.
Despite there being a number of surprising entries throughout the list, the top 10 was a tad predictable with a number of local councilors and politicians (you all know who) being featured.
The overall winner though was the NEC’s chief executive, Paul Thandi, which I was actually quite surprised about. The NEC is an outstanding contributor to Birmingham’s economy, nobody can argue with that, but can that be the sole basis for which the No.1 of the Power 50 is decided upon?
For next years list I would love to see a far greater concentration of individuals from the creative industries as they have just as much, if not more effect on how Birmingham is run. It would be great to see more women in the list as well as they only took up 9 places out of 50 this year, that’s a rather poor 18%. Next year, maybe just maybe a woman could achieve a place in the top 10.
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