Anthropy Invests In Optimism
We watched founder John O'Brien open the London Stock Exchange
I wish there was a single button we could press to “rewild markets”—or at least to prepare them for the disruptive realities of the coming decades. But if there is one, we haven’t yet found it. Still, we do try to explore every avenue open to us to find such buttons, as when supporting the ultimately abortive Social Stock Exchange in the UK—where I chaired the admissions panel and was for a brief time a member of the board.
Then, early yesterday morning, we inched further into the financial mainstream with the daily “Market Open'“ ceremony at the London Stock Exchange. Opening the trading day, Anthropy—which we helped evolve as part of the founding group—celebrated the launch of the “UK’s largest shared agenda.”
This will be addressed at the upcoming national gathering: Anthropy25, on 26-28 March. The full agenda is now public on the Anthropy website.
And it is great to hear that LSEG, the London Stock Exchange Group, has now joined leading UK businesses as an Anthropy member—and will be participating in the national gathering, to be held at the Eden Project.
It was also wonderful to be invited to join leaders on the balcony of the London Stock Exchange as Anthropology founder John O’Brien opened the market. “While the London Stock Exchange deals in shares and bonds, convening people and capital,” he noted, “we at Anthropy deal in something just as valuable. We trade in ideas. We invest in optimism.”
“That is why today marks the launch of the Anthropy25 national Agenda,” he explained, “and I can’t think of a better place to introduce this vision than here, among those who understand what it means to create value. Real value is built in many ways, through financial capital, and also through social capital, cultural capital, natural capital, through the strength of our institutions and the ambition of our people.”
Joining him on the balcony and afterwards, Dame Julia Hoggett, CEO of London Stock Exchange plc, seemed in buoyant mood. “We are delighted to welcome Anthropy to the London Stock Exchange,” she said. “Working in partnership to shape the future of Britain is a cause that we are fully committed to, ensuring that companies and sovereigns can access the capital they need to finance innovation, growth, jobs, infrastructure and the low-carbon transition.”
Preparing markets for the post-Trump era will take a huge number of experiments, not all of them successful. But having switched stock exchanges must be a key part of any successful transition.
John Elkington is Founder & Global Ambassador at Volans. His personal website can be accessed here.
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Thank you john for this splendid overview - it really is much appreciated. Very much look forward to the big event itself and seeing Volans there in force once again.