Nov 06 - Lord Hastings Believes Gibraltar's Leaders Could Help Other Communities
Gibraltar could be a “landmark state to provide for the needs of countries beyond it” was the message Lord Michael Hastings of Scarisbrick brought to the Future Leaders Programme ran by local branches of KPMG International and Barclays.
Lord Hastings has been working with KPMG International’s Global Head of Citizenship, and that involves speaking about the characteristics and aspects of leadership – which he describes as perspective, integrity and servanthood.
As for his visit in Gibraltar, Lord Hastings said: “I’ll be focusing on the responsibilities of a change maker, and understand fundamentally what individual purpose is about and how individual purpose relates to collective purpose.”
He explains that corporate responsibility is something that allows companies and leaders to care for their communities, but with regards to Gibraltar he says: “This is a growing economy.
“The opportunity of the resources of this community could be put to best effect – it’s not that there’s mass migration to Gibraltar, and there aren’t substantial levels of poverty either.
“This is an opportunity for this community to invest in countries of disadvantaged, because they are skilled and wealthy and educated and privileged.
“Therefore, I believe Gibraltar could be a landmark state to provide for the needs of countries beyond it.”
Lord Hastings made reference to the indigenous aboriginal people of northern western Australia during his presentation at the Eliott Hotel last week, who through a leaders programme run by KPMG, have been given the chance to manage their own affairs and make them part of the democratic landscape, which in turn would allow them to develop their leadership, Lord Hastings explained. KPMG got involved and helped them to develop from education right through to business initiation.
He added: “The results are positive but there is still a lot of work to do. There are more than 450,000 aboriginal people and there’s a large community with a big historic problem.
“I think it is fair to say the expectations have been rising among the aboriginal people, their engagement in these corporate partnerships will result in positive outcome for them and can result in meaningful economic advantage and it can become part of the political landscape and it can become part of the economic future of the country, and that for us is a leadership imperative.
“Why work at the top end of society which already has so many privileges, we’d rather work at the bottom end?”
Lord Hastings has a diverse career spanning over 30 years. He worked as a teacher before joining GMTV as its Chief Political Correspondent. In 1994 he moved to the BBC as a presenter of the weekly Around Westminster programme before joining its Corporate Affairs division. He was awarded a CBE in recognition of his services to crime reduction in 2003, and made peer by Her Majesty the Queen in 2005, as well as receiving a UNICEF award.
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